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Most Awesome 4x4 Trucks Ever Made |
Sold for $40,000 on January, 2014 Series IIA Long Wheel Base Frame-off restoration No expense spared Power discovery seats Power winch Attractive color combination 139/77 HP engine 4-speed transmission |
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1964 LAND ROVER |
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The Land Rover Series IIA is considered by
many the most hardy Series model constructed. It is also the type of
classic Land Rover that features strongly in the general public's
perception of the Land Rover, from its many appearances in popular films
and television documentaries set in Africa throughout the 1960s, such as
Born Free. In February 1968, just a few months after its manufacturer
had been subsumed, under government pressure, into the Leyland Motor
Corporation, the Land Rover celebrated its twentieth birthday, with
total production to date just short of 600,000, of which more than 70%
had been exported. Certainly it was whilst the Series IIA
was in production that sales of utility Land Rovers reached their peak,
in 1969–70, when sales of over 60,000 Land Rovers a year were recorded.
As well as record sales, the Land Rover dominated many world markets- in
Australia in the 1960s Land Rover held 90% of the 4×4 market. This
figure was repeated in many countries in Africa and the Middle East. The Land Rover was designed to only be in production for two or three years to gain some cash flow and export orders for the Rover Company so it could restart up-market car production. Once car production restarted, however, it was greatly outsold by the off-road Land Rover, which developed into its own brand that remains successful today. Many of the defining and successful features of the Land Rover design were in fact the result of Rover's drive to simplify the tooling required for the vehicle and to use the minimum amount of rationed materials. As well as the aluminium alloy bodywork (which has been retained throughout production despite it now being more expensive than a conventional steel body due to its ideal properties of light weight and corrosion resistance) other examples include the distinctive flat body panels with only simple, constant-radius curves (originally used because they could be cut and formed by hand from aluminium sheet on a basic jig) and the sturdy box-section ladder chassis, which on Series vehicles was made up from four strips of steel welded at each side to form a box, thus cutting down on the complex welding operations required when making a more conventional U- or I-section frame. Today the Series IIA Land Rovers are becoming highly collectible. This is especially true of those that have be completely restored. Although they don't perform well on modern roads they still perform well off road. However most are now just part of collections and see little or no off road use. |
