1948 Land Rover LAUNCH car being restored by JLR Classic

Jaguar Land Rover Classics is restoring one of the three 1948 Land Rover launch cars, recently rediscovered, as it starts its Land Rover 70th anniversary celebrations.

It’s 70 years this year since the very first Land Rover arrived at the Amsterdam Motor Show and started an unbroken 67 years of production for the Land Rover ‘Defender’.

Now, as JLR start a year of celebration of Land Rover’s 70th anniversary, it plans to restore one of the three launch cars from 1948, which has recently been rediscovered.

Last seen on the road in the 1960s, this Series I Land Rover sat in a field in Wales for 20 years before being sold as a restoration project, after which it languished in a garden waiting for some TLC. 

As is often the way with restoration projects, the Land Rover remained unfinished, but when JLR realised there was an original launch Land Rover being used as a garden ornament just a few miles from Solihull they snapped it up.

Now, as a launch for Land Rover’s 70th year celebrations, the team which has been running the Land Rover Series I Reborn project, are on a year long mission to restore the Land Rover to its former glory.

Tim Hannig, JLR Classic Director, said:

This Land Rover is an irreplaceable piece of world automotive history and is as historically important as ‘Huey’, the first pre-production Land Rover. Beginning its sympathetic restoration here at Classic Works, where we can ensure it’s put back together precisely as it’s meant to be, is a fitting way to start Land Rover’s 70th anniversary year.

As one of the 48 pre-production Land Rovers, this car has a number of unique features – like a removable rear tub and thicker aluminium body panels – and JLR will retain the patina in the restoration process.

Expect much more ‘History’ from Land Rover as 2018 rolls on.