Benefiting from its own turf, Land Rover manage to create a huge celebration on its 70th anniversary. It all happened at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where a convoy of 70 rare and important Land Rovers stole the show at Goodwood Festival of Speed yesterday as part of a record parade up the famous Goodwood Hill.
The largest ever batch of vehicles to drive up the famous hill were led by a recreation of the very first Land Rover – a Centre Steer prototype – and ‘HUE 166’, the first Series I pre-production prototype from 1948. The Series I was such a success that it spawned the Series II and Series III, an example of which became the millionth Land Rover sold just 28 years after the very first prototype.
That millionth car also appeared in the parade, as part of a group of 25 early Series I, II and III vehicles including fire engines, SAS vehicles, aircraft crash rescue and African expedition heroes – demonstrating the breadth of versatility of Land Rover over the years.
All four generations of Range Rover featured in the convoy, including a Trans-Americas Expedition example which crossed the all-but-impassable Darien Gap in 1971 and a 2004 example used by Cheshire Police. Also present was Land Rover’s Discovery nameplate showcased with an example of each of the five generations, including a round-the-world expedition car, the first Discovery ever built and the millionth Discovery to roll off the line.
