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The preproduction Land Rovers are basically a small
batch of vehicles made (48 in total numbered R or
L01 to 48) for the purpose of testing and evaluating
by the Rover company and others before production
started in June 1948. The history of these vehicles
is covered closely in many book the most well know
being Land Rover - The Early Years by Tony Hutchings.
What isn't covered so closely is the originality of
each of them and a lot of the detail of the existing
19 vehicles. Tom Pickford and myself have been closely
comparing each of the existing vehicles and are keeping
notes on each one so eventually a better idea of how
each evolved and how a number of the design ideas
changed on the first fifty or so production models,
and then how they changed once again on the next 250
production vehicles and so on until you ended up with
the real mass production 80" Land Rovers in late 1948.
Of the 48 made nineteen exist and are numbered....
R01, L03, R04, R08, L09, L11, R12, R14, R16, R17, L19,
R23, R24, L25, L29, R30, R45 and R46. The remains
of L26 are in existence but not enough to put the
vehicle back together.
All of the left-hand drive
vehicles were converted to right-hand drives except
L09 by the factory and are often now prefixed with
an R. A few are being converted back to their original
left hand spec'. The great thing about the preproduction
is that for such historic vehicles a number of them
are very accessible and are often being driven
to shows and rallies by their owners, sometimes even
taken offroad. The easiest to have a look at is R01
which is at the BMIHT centre, at Gaydon, Warwickshire.
Another easy one to see is R04 which is at the National
Motor Museum at Beaulieu.
Looking at the Land Rovers closely with a trained
eye for detail and a close knowledge of early production
vehicles even though the prepro's look pretty much
the same as a normal 80" obtaining permission first
and then going all over them you will find endless
differences, unless one has been updated with later parts.
Some early parts that included the front hubs, swivel
housings, swivels, steering relay and the tops of
the brake and clutch pedals were cast in Phosphor
Bronze. The chassis was galvanised on the preproductions
which has helped preserve them. The bodywork is all
slightly different to the normal stuff. An easily
missed difference is the very heavy gauge alloy that
it is made from. The engine came straight from the Rover
P3 car line and has all the early car items on it
and includes high compression pistons, alloy sump
and side cover and on early vehicles the car oil filler
on the right hand side of the engine. The gearbox
is pretty much normal but is missing its reverse stop adjuster.
The transfer box is in its in
its original form with selectable freewheel and freewheel
lock, selectable two and four wheel drive, and high
or low ratio. The controls for the transfer box came
through the bulkhead. The remains of some of these
differences can be
seen on production 80" Land Rovers -
Michael Bishop.
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