Land Rover
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| Brand of Jaguar Land Rover | |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | Brand first used in 1948 |
| Headquarters | Whitley, Coventry, United Kingdom |
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Key people
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Ralf Speth (CEO) John Edwards (Global Brand Director) |
| Products | Automobiles |
| Owner | Tata Motors |
| Parent | Jaguar Land Rover |
| Website | www |
| Owner | Tata Motors |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Markets | Automotive |
| Previous owners | 1948–1967 Rover Company 1967–1968 Leyland Motor Corporation 1968–1986 British Leyland Motor Corporation 1986–2000 Rover Group 2000–2008 Ford Motor Company |
Land Rover is a car brand that specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles, owned by British multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, which is in turn owned by India's Tata Motors since 2008. The Land Rover is regarded as a British icon, and was granted a Royal Warrant by King George VI in 1951.
The Land Rover name was originally used by the Rover Company for the Land Rover Series, launched in 1948. It developed into a brand encompassing a range of four-wheel-drive models, including the Defender, Discovery, Freelander, Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Land Rovers are currently assembled in the company's Halewood and Solihull plants, with research and development taking place at the Gaydon and Whitley engineering centres. Land Rover sold 194,000 vehicles worldwide in 2009.
In September 2013 Jaguar Land Rover announced plans to open a 100 million GBP (160 million USD) research and development centre in the University of Warwick, Coventry to create a next generation of vehicle technologies. The carmaker said around 1,000 academics and engineers would work there and that construction would start in 2014.
The design for the original Land Rover vehicle was started in 1947 by Maurice Wilks, chief designer at the Rover Company, on his farm in Newborough, Anglesey, working in conjunction with his brother Spencer who was the Managing Director of Rover. The design may have been influenced by the Jeep and the prototype, later nicknamed Centre Steer, was built on a Jeep chassis and axles. The early choice of colour was dictated by military surplus supplies of aircraft cockpit paint, so early vehicles only came in various shades of light green; all models until recently feature sturdy box section ladder-frame chassis. Early vehicles like the Series I were field-tested at Long Bennington and designed to be field-serviced.
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Wikipedia