Land Rover history, Prototypes/Centre Steer
Short Wheelbase sizes: 80" only
Long Wheelbase sizes: None tested

Testing before the production of a vehicle is a vital stage of the development of the car, and this is used by engineers to discover faults with the car. In the case of the Land-Rover it was discovered that the bumper needed to be bolted on, not welded. This was because in the case of an accident the bumper could be easily replaced and there would be no need for expensive and time consuming cutting and re-welding

Land-Rover Pre-production models

    Due to the time and money constraints at Rover, the new Land-Rover couldn't have too many resources allocated to it, so only 48 pre-production models were built, modern cars may have as many as 300 built.
    

    The above picture is a pre-production model , and differed very little from the final model that was put into production.

    The main difference being the bumper it was bolted, not welded in the final model, the transmission also varied, but very little. 

    This model was lovingly restored back to it's original condition by Ken Wheelwright (Pictured driving) who is a valuable figure in restoring and maintaining a variety of Pre-production and Old Series I Land-Rovers.

However, there was a Land-Rover before all this....

Centre-Steer Mystery

The centre-steer Land-Rover was based on Willis Jeep (probably why its a mystery!?) chassis and proved that the Land-Rover was a feasible project. However it went missing. Where to? No-one knows, all that is known is that it was probably disassembled in the Land-Rover factory a few months after production started. This is all the information that is known and is based entirely from a childhood memory of Maurice's Wilks' son.

There is a £5000 reward for finding it, put up by Land Rover Owner International. However at this time it looks as if their money is safe, do you have a center steer in your garage!?...

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