Britain Owned the 4x4 World — Then Handed It to Toyota
Great British Classic Cars
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In 1958 the Land Rover was king of the Australian bush, outselling the Jeep four to one. Twenty years later it had all but vanished from the cattle stations and mine sites, and Britain never won that market back.
Toyota didn't start with the better truck. The early Land Cruiser had no low range and only three gears. What it had was supply. Rover couldn't build Land Rovers fast enough and rationed them by market, so a Queensland contractor called Leslie Thiess bought thirteen Toyotas in 1958 and began selling to everyone left in the queue.
This is the story of how Britain lost the outback. It starts with a sketch drawn in the sand on Anglesey and runs through the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the Rockhampton show where a Land Cruiser sold in a day, Victoria's buy-British policy and the years British Leyland starved Solihull of investment. It ends with the last Defender leaving Solihull in 2016, and with the Land Cruiser passing ten million sales.
Was the Land Rover killed, or was it buried?
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7 Comments
So I went to Landrover Defender ,both great wagons.
Britain Owned the 4x4 World — Then Handed It to Toyota
Great British Classic Cars
3,314 views
In 1958 the Land Rover was king of the Australian bush, outselling the Jeep four to one. Twenty years later it had all but vanished from the cattle stations and mine sites, and Britain never won that market back.
Toyota didn't start with the better truck. The early Land Cruiser had no low range and only three gears. What it had was supply. Rover couldn't build Land Rovers fast enough and rationed them by market, so a Queensland contractor called Leslie Thiess bought thirteen Toyotas in 1958 and began selling to everyone left in the queue.
This is the story of how Britain lost the outback. It starts with a sketch drawn in the sand on Anglesey and runs through the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the Rockhampton show where a Land Cruiser sold in a day, Victoria's buy-British policy and the years British Leyland starved Solihull of investment. It ends with the last Defender leaving Solihull in 2016, and with the Land Cruiser passing ten million sales.
Was the Land Rover killed, or was it buried?
Subscribe to Great British Cars for more stories of what Britain built and then threw away.
It really is heart ache to this happen. I have my own family and business to run and I have to make them my priority.