Land Rover is the oldest brand to manufacture SUV’s, as it was established before the brand Jeep – but after the jeep vehicle. It is said to have been inspired by the earlier jeeps manufactured during the second world war, and that land rover’s designer Maurice Wilks, as he was at the time in head of the design department for the British company Rover.
The first prototype was built on a Jeep chassis and made out of newer aluminum and alloy materials rather than steel (at the time there was a post war steel shortage and plenty of airplane materials, along with cockpit paint in various shades of green). So the first Land Rovers rolled off with a great record of reliability and endurance, and coming in many shades of green. There was once an advertisement stating that the Land Rover drove thousands of miles on just banana oil (as the original engines were 2.5L 4 cylinders that were extremely simple and mechanically easy to repair). However they adopted more complex electronic engines later on.
The Land Rover went on to become one of the most popular workhorse vehicles across much of the world, including Africa, South America, and Australia, and also Asia. Unfortunately by the 1970s they had lost much of the market share in those regions and have been seeing declining sales due to cheaper Japanese and Korean made vehicles taking dominance with better prices.
Even in Britain the Land Rover has fallen from grace with the small farming communities and some of the military vehicles – as cheaper and less expensive Asian imports are more favorable. Recently their reputation has faltered as well, being seen as less reliable and less cost effective because of how close Land Rover and Jaguar are now (Ford owns them both and Jaguar’s engines have been in Land Rovers, leading to many reliability problems in the past).
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