The world’s longest-serving car goes out of production
The Land Rover Defender, the Land Rover is going out of production in 2015. Since 1948 Land Rover has offered new car buyers what is now the world’s oldest vehicle (depending on specification it’s not technically a car).
The design for the original Land Rover vehicle was started in 1947 by Maurice Wilks, chief designer at Rover, on his farm on the isle of Anglesey. The aluminium body work was driven by lack of steel in post war Britain and colour was dictated by war surplus supplies of aircraft cockpit paint, so early vehicles only came in various shades of light green.
The Land Rover never really evolved like other cars; the latest engines or safety requirements such as seat belts where just bolted into the 1948 body and provided owners with a timeless vehicle immune to the vagaries and peer group pressures of detroit driven annual model updates .the latest Defenders have electric windows, air conditioning, a radio and seats that adjust and a range or colours but that’s it. And perhaps thats why Land Rovers go on for ever – it is said three out of every four ever built are still on a road somewhere. Which of course means there is something like 2 million previously loved examples out there in various states of vintage, decay and personalization through modification. And if you are of a hipster persuasion then one of these is what you crave, its hard-earned patina and sun-flattened matte paint work the perfect complement to the bare brick walls of your authentic converted warehouse.
