Rear View: 1970 Range Rover

The revolutionary Range Rover emerged from the questionable Road Rover concept to rewrite the rule book for 4x4 wagons.

A retired motor-mechanic mate once opined that his famous-brand vacuum cleaner was "the only piece of British engineering that doesn’t suck". At least one other was the Range Rover which, in its original incarnation from 1970-95, joined its dungaree-wearing Land Rover brother and the original Mini as one of the United Kingdom’s longest-serving automotive designs.

Like those two cars, the Range Rover owed its design longevity to the fact that nobody else came up with a better one. As Japanese manufacturers gradually refined their four-wheel drive wagons into the 1980s, the Range Rover used its brand cache to climb farther upmarket.

Tough off-road types dismissed the Range Rover as a 'Toorak tractor', but that was always the point of it.

Featuring a mainly aluminium body on a separate steel chassis, the Range Rover could hold its own as an off-roader (Image: Land Rover UK)

The Range Rover concept was born around 1950. With the still-new Land Rover a sales sensation, Rover sought not a dumbed-down 4WD, but a road-going wagon with off-road capability. The 'Road Rover', initially slated for production in 1953, owed far more to the Rover sedans of its day.

However, management ultimately baulked at the emerging concept’s styling – part Rover 90, part Trabant, and part Port-A-Loo – and by 1958, it was all over, Road Rover.

Re-ignition came from the other side of the Atlantic. In 1963, the Jeep Wagoneer blurred the line between 4WDs and family wagons. Rover’s R&D chief Charles Spencer 'Spen' King was urged to develop a comfortable, well-equipped wagon that could answer the call of the wild.

King's only constraint was to use an existing Rover engine, namely the 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder unit from the P5 sedan. The part aluminium-bodied two-door wagon project thus progressed until Rover’s discovery of the 3.5-litre Buick V8 engine. The rights and tooling to produce it were bought from GM in 1965; Rover would continue to build this engine for the next 40 years.

Although today's Range Rover is seen as a luxury vehicle, the first examples were about well-executed minimalism (Image: Land Rover UK)

The Buick 215 engine was a boon to Rover, the all-alloy V8 being lighter and more compact than most of Rover's fours and sixes. Range Rovers used a Stromberg carburetted version with 101kW/250Nm. A newly developed four-speed manual transmission with dual-range was standard. 

King's team developed a costly, constant 4WD system. Rover management believed it indulgent for a predominantly on-road wagon; King countered that 'estate' buyers were less price-sensitive than the Land Rover's agricultural customers.

The Rangie comprised a mainly aluminium body on a separate steel chassis. King's team went to town on suspension and drivetrain, fitting coils at each corner (on live axles) with exceptional wheel travel and ride comfort. Self-levelling Boge Hydromat suspension at the rear was an idea borrowed from Mercedes-Benz limousines. 

A newly-developed four-speed manual gearbox with dual range was equipped as standard (Image: Land Rover UK)

Constant four-wheel drive was via a lockable centre diff, and Lockheed all-wheel discs with dual-line assistance was also very advanced. Steering was Charles Atlas stuff until power-assist was added in '73.

Rover's 1967 absorption into the Leyland Group brought more momentum to the project, and King brought the planned 1971 launch forward by a year.

In the meantime, early prototypes during testing were badged VELAR, supposedly from the Spanish velar (to look after, to watch over) and the Italian velare (to veil, to cover).

At the time, the Range Rover's costly constant 4WD system was seen by management as overindulgent for a predominantly on-road wagon (Image: Land Rover UK)

Unveiled at the Earl's Court Motor Show in June 1970, the Range Rover created a stir well beyond the predictable, damp-trousered reception from the Pommy press. Apart from merging off-roader with family wagon, it could perform both roles better than most single-purpose competitors.

The first Range Rovers were about well-executed minimalism. There was no air-con or power steering, and vinyl floor mats and seats were coloured and moulded to look luxurious while offering hose-out simplicity. 

The exaggeratedly high driving position gave a commanding view, while 'castellated' bonnet corners aided positioning when off-road. 

The Range Rover is one of the United Kingdom's longest-serving automotive designs (Image: Land Rover UK)

Launched two months too late for the 1970 World Cup Rally, Rangies instead completed a 29,000km expedition from Alaska to Argentina in 1971. The inaugural Paris-Dakar Rally in 1979 was won by a privateer Range Rover, one of 13 entered; a Range Rover again won the event two years later.

The Rangie finally gained a four-door body in 1981 and an automatic transmission the following year. Fuel injection came in 1987, then an engine capacity increase to 4.0-litres in 1989, making a far more reasonable 142kW/320Nm.

By the time production of the Series 1 'Classic' ended in 1995, a year after the introduction of its P38A successor, a total of 325,490 had been built.

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