WHY YOU WANT ONE
There is a simple elegance about the original 1970 Range Rover that makes the current generation of overblown luxury off-roaders appear absurd. Its boxy, minimalist yet perfectly proportioned profile has become so familiar over the past 35 years that it now seems like everyday street furniture. And yet when you are confronted with one of the original three-door models - quite a rare sight these days - it's hard not to view it with fresh eyes.
There is a light touch to the proportions of David Bache's masterpiece that tells you everything you need to know about its intentions. It is not muscle-bound and over-bearing with fat arches and an ugly grille to make it appear 'rugged'; bull-bars and fancy wheels don't 'improve' it. In a 25-year career the first generation of Range Rover proved curiously resistant to updates and revisions. The first edition is easily the best.
The brilliance of the Range Rover was that it appeared at home in any surroundings; it looked just as good churning up the mud in a Gloucestershire field as it did parking next to a Maserati on the Kings Road. This was the original luxury off-roader, the car that single-handedly created a genre that many of us now loathe as successive generations of ever bigger, ever uglier 4x4s compete for dominance. It is a type of car that has become associated with spoilt housewives on the school run who rarely consider the mud-plugging capabilities of their vehicle.
Yet there was something authentic about the original Range, a refined V8-powered executive car that could also stride across rough terrain with more sure-footed confidence than anything this side of a Scorpion tank.
With enormous foresight Rover began thinking about building a Land Rover derivative with long-distance road car comfort as early as 1951. The arrival of the Buick-derived 3.5 litre V8, and the reduction of its military output, gave the project added impetus in the second half of the Sixties. The main building blocks of the car's superiority were Spen King's supple long-travel suspension and permanent four-wheel drive in a massively built box section chassis with a rubber-mounted steel skeleton to support the aluminium panels. The shape was knocked together quickly as a rough-and-ready prototype just to cover the mechanics but the basic proportions were so right that all David Bache had to do was clean it up for production.
It is still one of the few British cars ever chosen to be exhibited in the Louvre gallery as an example of modern automotive art.
Launched at Earls Court in 1970 the Range Rover caused a sensation. Powered by a low compression version of Rover's V8 engine its 100mph top speed might not be much to write home about today but it made it easily the fastest off-road vehicle around and equally as quick as most of the luxurious estate cars that were the only things motoring pundits could struggle to compare it with. What they didn't have were the Range Rover's effortless all-terrain ability, its traction, the fabulous views afforded by its high seating position and big windows. Nor were they as chic; there was something very cool about being seen behind the wheel of a Range Rover in the early '70s.
A status symbol for the county set and an absolute gift to motorway Police the Range Rover survived the seventies relatively unblemished, gaining only fabric seats, power steering and a few other improvements. In the '80s 'rivals' began to emerge and the process of upgrading began, sullying the purity of the original design to some critics' eyes.
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