44 years of the Range Rover - Telegraph.co.uk
Honeychurch was nine at the time, but almost forty-five years on his love affair with Range Rovers continues. These days he owns seven, ranging from the latest model to the very first production example from 1970. It was the first one built after 25 engineering prototypes, and one of the original press launch cars. He spent £300 on a replacement fuel cap, unique to early Range Rovers, and balefully admits that a simple plastic strip running under the doors would cost “a grand” if you can find one. Put Honeychurch’s very old and very new Range Rovers side by side and the lineage is obvious. For example, the Range Rover’s distinctive “floating roof” design came about simply because of the way the original car’s top was bolted on to the structure beneath. However, while the latest Range Rover is very much a luxury car, feeling vast and plush inside, its parent can appear rather crude and insubstantial, with big panel gaps and exposed rivets and screws. But in an era where you could buy cart sprung cars without seatbelts or power brakes, the coil sprung, all-wheel-drive, alloy-bodied Range Rover was an upmarket and rarefied thing that was faster and more comfortable than many saloons on road, as... Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
