Land Rover is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Range Rover SUV with an exhibition entitled ‘The Range Rover Story’.
The exhibit is housed at the British manufacturer’s Solihull plant in the West Midlands and showcases the engineering story behind the Range Rover by tracing the history of the vehicle.
The Range Rover’s story began three years before the first model was assembled in 1970, when the secret prototype codenamed Velar was built.
Roger Crathorne, who has worked for Land Rover for 50 years and is known as ‘Mr Land Rover’ because of his technical knowledge said the original aim was “never to build a luxury vehicle” but this evolved as, “we wanted to develop a more comfortable on-road Land Rover that would combine the comfort of the Rover with the Land Rover 4×4 capability to support a growing leisure market.”
The exhibition will take visitors through time from the mid-1960s, through to the introduction of the modern-day Range Rover Sport and Range Rover Evoque, and the latest addition to the family – the Range Rover Velar
The exhibit is expected to run for three years and adult tickets cost £49 (R840).