British Leyland · 1970–1996

Range Rover (1st generation)

The Range Rover is a 4x4, mid-size off-road vehicle series produced from 1970 to 1996 – initially by the Rover (later Land Rover) division of British Leyland, and latterly by the Rover Group. The first generation of vehicles produced under the Range Rover name, it was built as a two-door model for its first 11 years, until a four-door also became available in 1981. The Range Rover then successfully moved upmarket during the 1980s, and remarkably debuted in the U.S. as a 17-year old model at the 1987 Los Angeles Auto Show. Availability of the two-door version was restricted from 1984, but it remained in production for some markets until 1994, when the second generation was launched. From that moment, Land Rover rebranded the original model under the term Range Rover Classic, to distinguish it from its new P38A successor, when the two were briefly built alongside, and applied the name retrospectively to all first-generation Range Rovers. Although formally superseded by the second generation Range Rover, starting in 1994 – both the successor and the more affordable first and second series of the Land Rover Discovery were heavily based on the original Range Rover's chassis, drive-train and body-structure, which in essence lived on until the third generation Discovery arrived, and its mechanical blood-line ended with the replacement of the Mark 2 Discovery after 2004. In early 2020, the 26-year production run of the original Range Rover was counted as the twenty-seventh most long-lived single generation car in history by Autocar magazine.

Text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Successor: Land Rover Range Rover (P38A)

All British Leyland Range Rover data: UK builds, safety, recalls, model years →

History

Rover's Land Rover Series I launched in 1948 had been designed to be cheap, simple to manufacture, and suitable for hard work in rural terrain, with minimal concessions toward comfort. Rover shortly realised that a market existed for an off-road capable vehicle with more amenities. In 1949, the Land Rover estate car was released, with a coach-built wood-framed body by Tickford. However, the high price of adding such car-like features as seven seats, floor carpets, a heater, a one-piece windscreen resulted in fewer than 700 being sold before the model was dropped in 1951. In 1954, Land Rover launched a second iteration estate car, this time aimed at the commercial user who needed an off-road vehicle for carrying passengers without car-like comforts. Based on the commercial variant of the Land Rover, it had seats fitted to the load space and windows cut into the sides. While available with features such as an interior light, heater, door and floor trims and upgraded seats, the estate car retained the base vehicle's tough and capable suspension – as well as its mediocre road performance. By the late 1950s, Rover had become convinced a market for a more comfortable 4x4 existed in areas such as Africa and Australia, where ordinary motorists faced long journeys on unmade roads that called for four-wheel drive and tough suspension. In 1958 the first of the "Road Rover" development cars was built. Combining the Land Rover's tenacity with the comfort of a Rover saloon car, it featured a Land Rover chassis and running gear clothed in a functional estate car-like body. It never made it into production. By the 1960s, Rover was becoming aware of the embryonic development of the sport utility vehicle in North America. Proto SUVs such as the Willys Jeep Station Wagon (1949 for the Uti

On and off-road concept

Introduced to the public in June 1970, the new "Range Rover" was launched as "A Car For All Reasons", boasting a top speed of around 100 mph (160 km/h), a towing capacity of 3.5 tons, spacious accommodation for five occupants, hydraulic disc brakes on all wheels, and a groundbreaking four-speed, dual-range, permanent four-wheel drive system. To much critical acclaim, it appeared that Rover had succeeded in their goal of making a car equally capable both on and off-road. With a top speed of 95 mph (153 km/h) and acceleration from a standstill to 60 mph (97 km/h) in less than 15 seconds, performance was stated as being better than many family saloon cars of its era, and off-road performance was good, owing to its long suspension travel and high ground clearance. The 1995 Classic Range Rovers would reduce the 0 to 60 mph (0 to 97 km/h) time to around 11 seconds, and increase the top speed to approximately 110 mph (180 km/h). Notable off-road feats were winning the four-wheel drive class in the first Paris-Dakar Rally in 1979 and 1981, and being two of the first vehicles (along with a Land Rover Series IIA) to traverse both American continents north-to-south through the Darién Gap from 1971 to 1972. Even though the concept was initially aimed at customers like construction foremen and military officers who needed 4WD for professional reasons as well as occasional recreational users like skiers, it soon became a car of choice for aristocratic English country house owners.

Body

Like other Land Rover vehicles, most of the Range Rover's bodywork skin is constructed from lightweight aluminium, except for the two-section rear upper and lower tailgates, the rear corners adjacent to the tailgate and the bonnet on all but the earliest models. Apart from minor cosmetic changes, the body design changed very little in its first decade. However, while utility Land Rovers had body panels rolled from a single sheet of aluminium, the Range Rover used aluminium panels hung on a steel 'safety frame' (a method pioneered with great success on the Rover P6 saloon). This allowed the bodywork of the Range Rover to carry much greater structural strength with the steel frame while retaining the corrosion-resistant and easily repaired aluminium outer panels. While the steel frame was designed by the engineering team, it was expected that Rover's stylist David Bache would provide a design for the outer panels for use on the production vehicles. For the prototypes the engineers designed their own functional body panels simply to protect the occupants and to allow the vehicles to be driven legally on the road. However the clean, square-cut and functional design of the prototype was deemed so good that Bache only altered the detailing, such as providing a different front grille and headlamp design. The Range Rover also marked the first appearance of Bache's trademark "symmetric" dashboard, where a common moulding was used for the fascia superstructure on both RHD and LHD versions, onto which the pod-style instrument binnacle was simply mounted on the appropriate side – Bache would use this concept again on both the Rover SD1 and the Austin Metro in later years. The original fascia would later be nicknamed the "Airfix Dashboard" by Range Rover enthusiasts owing to its har

Chassis and suspension

The Range Rover broke from the Land Rovers of its time by using coil springs instead of the then-common leaf springs. Because of its hefty weight, it also had disc brakes on all four wheels. Originally, it had no power steering, though this was added in 1973. One problem with the Range Rover chassis was that it suffered considerably from body roll. Because of this, the suspension was lowered by 20 mm (0.8 in) in 1980, and later gained anti-roll bars. Air suspension was introduced in late 1992 for high-end 1993 models. Most Range Rovers had a 100-inch (2,540 mm) wheelbase. However, 1992 saw the introduction of a more luxurious model, branded the LSE in the United Kingdom and County LWB (long wheelbase) in the United States, providing expansive rear-passenger legroom absent from the 100-inch wheelbase models. These had a 108-inch (2,743 mm) wheelbase, air suspension and 4.2-litre engines. The 100-inch Range Rover chassis became the basis for the Land Rover Discovery, introduced in 1989.

Engines

Originally, the Range Rover was fitted with a detuned 135 hp (101 kW) version of the Buick-derived Rover V8 engine. The 3,528 cc (3.5 L; 215.3 cu in) engine was increased to a displacement of 3,947 cc (3.9 L; 240.9 cu in) for the 1989 model year, and 4,197 cc (4.2 L; 256.1 cu in) in 1992. Petrol-fuelled Range Rovers were fitted with carburettors until 1986, when they were replaced by Lucas electronic fuel injection, improving both performance and fuel economy. The Lucas injection system continued to evolve over the next several years, culminating in the 1990 to 1995 Lucas 14CUX. Some export markets retained carburettors, with the original Zenith/Stromberg manufactured units being replaced by Skinners Union (SU)-manufactured items. From 1979 onwards, Land Rover collaborated with Perkins on Project Iceberg, an effort to develop a diesel version of the Range Rover's 3.5-litre V8 engine. Both naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions were built, but the all-alloy engine blocks failed under the much greater pressures involved in diesel operation. The project was, therefore, abandoned. The effort to strengthen the Rover V8 for diesel operation was not, however, completely wasted; the 4.2-litre petrol variant of the engine used crankshaft castings developed in the Iceberg project. Because of the Iceberg failure, it was not until 1986 that Range Rovers gained diesel engines from the factory. The more efficient 2,393 cc (2.4 L; 146.0 cu in) inline-four VM Motori diesel from Italy was made available as an option for the heavily taxed European market as the 'Turbo D' model, and were increased to 2,499 cc (2.5 L; 152.5 cu in) in 1989. The VM engines were highly advanced and refined diesel engines for their time but were received poorly by the UK press due to their inconsistent

Transmission

The Range Rover used permanent four-wheel drive, rather than the switchable rear-wheel/four-wheel drive on Land Rover Series vehicles, and had a lever for switching ratios on the transfer box for off-road use. Originally, the only gearbox available was a four-speed manual unit, until Fairey overdrive became an option after 1977. A three-speed Chrysler TorqueFlite automatic gearbox became an option in October 1982, after years of demands from buyers. This was upgraded to a 4-speed ZF box in 1985, coupled to an LT230 transfer box. The other major transmission upgrade in the Range Rover's lifetime was the switch from the LT95 combined four-speed manual gearbox and transfer box to the LT77 five-speed gearbox and separate LT230 transfer box in 1983. The LT230 was later used on both the Defender and Discovery models, but was replaced on the Range Rover by a Borg Warner chain-driven transfer box incorporating an automatic viscous coupling limited slip differential – earlier transmissions had a manual differential lock (operated by a vacuum servo on the LT95 and mechanically on the LT230). The LT77 had two major design changes: first an upgrade to larger bearings for the layshaft and new ratios around 1988, then a newly designed synchro hub for third and fourth gear and double synchros for first and second. This is also known as the suffix H gearbox or LT77s.

Sections adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); text is shortened. Read the full article for the complete history and citations.

Specifications

sp: uk
name: Range Rover "Classic"
Manufacturer: British Leyland (1970–1978), Land Rover Ltd. (1978–1996)
Production: 1970–1996, 326,070 produced
Assembly: United Kingdom: Solihull (Solihull plant), Australia: Enfield (Leyland Australia), Venezuela: Las Tejerías (Tracto Agro)
Successor: Range Rover
Class: off-road vehicle
Body style: 3/5-door off-road vehicle
Engine: petrol:, 3.5 L Rover V8, 3.9 L Rover V8, 4.2 L Rover V8, diesel:, 2.4 L VM Motori TD I4, 2.5 L VM Motori TD I4, 2.5 L 200Tdi TD I4, 2.5 L 300Tdi TD I4
Transmission: 4-speed manual (BL LT95), 5-speed manual (BL LT77), 3-speed automatic (Chrysler TorqueFlite A727), 4-speed automatic (ZF 4HP22)
Wheelbase: 100.0 in (SWB), 108.0 in (LWB)
Length: 175 in (SWB), 183 in (LWB)
Width: 70.1 in
Height: 70.9 in (1970–1980), 70.1 in (1980 onwards)
Related: Land Rover Discovery
Designer: Spen King (1967), Gordon Bashford (1967), David Bache (1967)