Land Rover Defender, 90 and 110 Range

30 Years of the Coil-Sprung 4x4 Models

James Taylor

• Publisher: Crowood
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781847975188
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Automotive Transportation & Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Land Rover Defender, 90 and 110 Range - 30 Years of the Coil-Spring 4x4 Models charts the evolution of the coil-sprung Defender vehicles. When Land Rover switched from leaf springs to coil springs for their utility models in 1983, it was a major step forward. The first coil-sprung model, the One Ten, replaced the Series III 109s. The short-wheelbase Ninety replaced the Series III 88s in 1984. From 1990, the models were all re-branded as Land Rover Defenders - 90, 110 and 140 - as the Land Rover range expanded and the marketing teams wanted a new name.Topics covered include: Origins of the Defender and early Ninety and One Ten Models; Development and use of the long-wheelbase models; Special conversions and Defenders built outside the UK, including in Australia and South Africa; Military and emergency service use of the Defender; Detailed examinations of engines and engineering, and the focus on diesel power; The future of the Defender. Charts the evolution of the coil-sprung Defender vehicles - the early 90 and 110 models from 1983 to present day. A must buy for all Land Rover enthusiasts. Superbly illustrated with 300 colour photographs. James Taylor is a well-known writer on classic motoring and a specialist on the Land Rover marque.

CHAPTER ONE

LIFE AND TIMES OF THE COIL-SPRUNG LAND ROVERS

By 1983, when the One Ten was introduced as the first coil-sprung Land Rover, the Land Rover marque had existed for thirty-five years. In all that time, its suspension had resolutely depended on leaf springs and the crucial novelty of the new model was that it had all-round coil springs. That was far from its only new feature of course, but it represented a defining moment in the history of the Land Rover.

During those thirty-five years, the Land Rover had made a place for itself in the motoring world. It had started out as a light commercial vehicle and despite the introduction of personnel-carrying station-wagon variants, it had remained essentially a light commercial. No matter that enthusiasts were wont to buy time-expired examples and turn them into competitive vehicles for off-road motor sport. No matter that Land Rovers were the first choice of pioneers and explorers from all round the world. In an August 1982 feature on buying second-hand examples, the magazine What Car? summed the position up quite simply: ‘The Land Rover,’ it said, ‘is first and foremost a workhorse.’

Thirty years later, the Land Rover, renamed a Land Rover Defender in 1990 to give it a clearer identity within an expanding product range, is still primarily a workhorse. But that definition has become considerably more blurred as the people-carrying Station Wagon models have taken an increasing share of the business. A Land Rover Defender is now also a vehicle that symbolizes adventure and personal freedom. It can even be chic and it most definitely reflects the owner’s view of his or her own image. Whereas the mainstream motoring press only rarely mentioned Land Rover developments in the early 1980s, by 2010 they were hot news, worthy of as many column inches as developments on everyday saloon cars.

These changes in public perception had their own effect on the development of the Land Rover; a manufacturer, after all, has to deliver products that people actually want to buy. Yet public perception was far from the only influence behind the changes to the Land Rover after 1983.

During the 1980s, four-wheel-drive models suddenly became fashionable as family transport, resulting in more and more manufacturers introducing products that threatened Land Rover sales. So Land Rover developments were driven by the need to keep ahead of the game, or, at the very least, up with it. Then there were changing regulations in the myriad world markets where the vehicles were sold – changes that affected such things as lighting, exhaust emissions and safety. Development was also affected by the backlash against four-wheel drives in general, engendered by those with environmental concerns who believed that the heavy fuel consumption typical of Land Rovers and their ilk was contrary to the best interests of the planet.

Yet some things did not change in the period of the coil-sprung models. Military demand worldwide for Land Rovers as light front-line vehicles barely fluctuated, despite the increasing popularity of purpose-built multirole machines like the Humvee. Police, ambulance and fire services continued to buy Land Rovers for special-duty tasks. Explorers, adventurers, conservationists and environmentalists all continued to buy Land Rovers to take them to places that would otherwise be inaccessible. Off-road driving enthusiasts still bought older models to turn into off-road competition or adventure machines – and often spent very large sums of money converting and equipping brand-new examples as well.

Ironically, as the new One Ten was announced in 1983, so one of its key overseas markets had started to collapse. Sub-Saharan Africa had always been a big market for Land Rovers, in particular because large fleets were bought by Government agencies and these fleets were renewed on a regular basis. Changes in UK Government subsidies at the start of the 1980s severely undermined this market, with Japanese competitors being quick to move in.

Land Rover responded in two main ways. First, it switched its focus from developing markets like these to the developed markets of the West – in particular continental Europe and North America. Then, to keep the Land Rover marque alive in Africa in the hope that better times would come, it established a number of reconditioning plants where older Land Rovers could be rebuilt to as-new condition for less than the cost of a new Japanese vehicle. Gradually, sales returned to sensible levels, although they never did regain the volumes seen in the 1960s and 1970s.

These were the company’s successes in the face of adversity, but Land Rover did not always get things right. A pigheaded refusal to accept that larger and more powerful engines, most notably a diesel, were an absolute necessity in some markets allowed competitors to make major inroads into long-standing Land Rover markets in the early 1980s. Without what amounted to unilateral action by some of the marque’s overseas branches, the situation would have been worse.

There is also no doubt that development of the workhorse models was neglected to an extent in the 1990s. The new focus on developed markets certainly diverted resources from developing a new Defender. The models that Land Rover developed instead – the Discovery, the Freelander and the Range Rover Sport – undoubtedly did the marque a power of good, but the constant deferment of a new model to some indeterminate point in the future meant that the task of developing one became ever more difficult. When it became clear, in 2011, that work really had begun on a Defender replacement, it also became apparent that the new model would have to be very different from the old in very many ways. The world, quite simply, had moved on.

Changes of Ownership

Yet the coil-sprung Land Rovers did provide a form of reassuring continuity through all the changes of ownership that their manufacturer went through at the end of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first. Owners came and owners went, but the Land Rover, a Defender by then, remained a constant.

When the One Ten was announced in 1983, Land Rovers were made by Land Rover Ltd, which was a standalone operating division of the much-reviled British Leyland (BL). That change to its status had occurred as recently as 1978, when Land Rover had been established as a separate company. Before then, it had sat uncomfortably alongside Rover, Triumph and Jaguar cars in the specialist cars division of the company, because before being absorbed into BL at the end of 1966, Land Rovers had been built by the old Rover Company.

However, it was Government money that had made the One Tens possible. Their design and development was funded by a £200 million grant provided as Stage 2 of an investment scheme agreed in 1978 – and as a result these models were initially known within Land Rover as Stage 2 types.

Arguably, this was good use of the British taxpayer’s money. However, the burden could not be borne forever and in 1986 the Government made moves to sell British Leyland. At that stage, the most likely buyers for Land Rover were General Motors and Ford, but public protests made the sale impossible. A management buyout attempt in 1987 was rejected; negotiations for British Aerospace to take over the whole of the Rover Group were announced in March 1988 and the deal was ratified by shareholders on 11 August. Only a nominal purchase price was paid (and this was the subject of later condemnation by European bodies), as the deal was as much a political move as anything else. The Rover cars and Land Rover sides of the company had been swiftly integrated so that no buyer could easily close down the loss-making car business and focus on the profit-making Land Rovers. That safeguarded jobs at Rove...