68
years after first production, the last classic Land Rover Defender, the 4x4
known the world over and with famous owners including Queen Elizabeth, rolled
off the production line on Friday.
Designed
originally for farming and agricultural use, the offroader became an iconic
British vehicle, popular with celebrities including Beatles singer Paul
McCartney and late actor Steve McQueen, selling over 2 million since 1948.
Indian-owned
Tata bought two loss-making British brands Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008 and
has since been rapidly updating and expanding its upmarket Range Rover line-up,
but will now turn its attention to the Defender model.
"Any
conventional vehicle would have been replaced many times over in the lifespan
of Defender," a spokeswoman at Jaguar Land Rover said.
"We’ve
now got the technology, pioneering engineering capability and design expertise
to evolve Defender."
It
takes 56 hours to make the largely hand-built Defender at the firm's Solihull
factory in central England, making it more expensive and time-consuming than
many other vehicles which have a higher degree of machine assembly.
But
the offroader has become synonymous with Britain thanks to owners such as the
queen, who has been pictured riding and waving to crowds from the back of the
4x4 from as early as 1957 in Hyde Park and during a visit to Melbourne in 1977.
The
first model was built in 1948, just three years after the end of World War Two,
with rationing still in place and British industry trying to recover from heavy
bombardment.
Due
to a lack of steel, lightweight aluminium was used for the body shells and the
vehicle has undergone a series of engine and design updates over nearly seven
decades.
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