Seven 4x4s inspired by the Land Rover Defender – Axon’s Automotive Anorak

The first of this practical mud-plugging duo to be recently presented was the commercial hard top version of the new Land Rover Defender, a more functional, long wheelbase derivative of JLR’s much-anticipated SUV with a legendary name. The new stripped-out Defender Hard Top is intended more to carry sheep to market in rural Yorkshire rather than dropping the kids off at school in congested Chelsea.

Possibly in rapid response to this (though more likely to have been carefully planned some time ago for early July release), within a working day, Ineos, the audacious new UK start-up rustic vehicle maker, revealed the first official photographs and preliminary details of its Ineos Grenadier, a fresh and welcome ‘back-to-basics’ four-wheel-drive response to the original (and much-missed) 1948-2016 Land Rover Series 1-3/Defender range.

Just as the new Grenadier clearly takes its inspiration from the Land Rover Defender, so the original Solihull 4x4 classic – as developed by Rover in the late 1940s – took its own influence from the war-time Jeep, initially conceived by Bantam (American Austin) in the USA, and produced (and perfected) by both Willys and Ford for military use.

As the hostilities ended, Willys continued production of the Jeep for civilian use (the CJ), this off-roader inspiring Rover’s original Land Rover of 1948. Over the subsequent 68 years, from the first Series 1 to the last Defender of 2016, the capable Land Rover proved its worth in the toughest and most hostile of surroundings the world over, this 4x4 being the very first motor car ever seen by many bewildered people in the more remote and unexplored parts of the Planet.

As well as its incredibly long 68-year production run in Solihull, the Land Rover was also built around the globe, as far flung as Australia, Brazil, Africa and Germany, where local ex-commercial vehicle maker Tempo constructed the ‘Landie’ under licence for local post-war German consumption, for example.

Although gradually usurped by other four-wheel-drive models (mainly Japanese, such as the Toyota Land Cruiser and, increasingly, the Hi Lux pick-up truck), the loyal Land Rover can still be found working hard in war zones, exploration treks, construction sites and farm yards across the globe, as well as waiting outside the school gates to collect little Jonny and Jessica.

As well as the freshly-revealed Ineos Grenadier (and new-generation Defender), the Land Rover 4x4 has inspired numerous off-roader facsimiles over the decades, as well as leading to some intriguing licence-built derivatives never assembled on the original model’s Solihull home production lines. Here are seven such examples, including a Defender spin-off that is still produced today!

Austin Gipsy

When the conservative Rover Motor Company launched its original Land Rover 4x4 at the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show, it caught its contemporary British rivals napping.

Willys had successfully begun to exploit many export territories post-war, permitting Jeep production licences to various countries, such as Hotchkiss in France, EBRO in Spain, Mitsubishi in Japan and Mahindra in India (where early Jeep CJ-derived models are still made). For the UK though, no such Jeep production agreements existed, leaving Rover with the monopoly on local 4x4 sales with its Land Rover for a few years.

Rover’s more mass-market British rival Austin was the first to challenge the Land Rover’s dominance, introducing its military-based Champ 4x4 (evolved from the austere war-time prototype Nuffield/Wolseley Mudlark 4x4) in late 1951, a pricey open-top ‘Jeep,’ ill-suited to civilian use and not as versatile (or appealing) as the more affordable Land Rover.

The commercial failure of the Champ prompted Austin to take another swipe at the Land Rover, launching its new Gipsy utility 4x4 in 1958, with styling clearly inspired by the Rover off-roader, right down to the familiar straight-edge design and inset headlamps. The mud-plugging Austin’s coachwork differed to the aluminium Land Rover in being steel, though mounted on a similar separate chassis like its established Solihull rival.

Powered by robust BMC 2.2-litre petrol and diesel motors, plus a choice of short or long wheelbases (but only ever with two doors), the Gipsy survived for ten years, but failed to put a serious dent in Land Rover sales. The 1968 absorption of Rover into the giant new British Leyland empire, alongside Austin, sealed the Gipsy’s fate, it being unviable against it’s now in-house Land Rover competitor.

Minerva Land Rover TT

Ahead of the Second World War, Minerva had been a fine Belgian vehicle maker, building prestige motor cars of a quality and reputation enviable enough to rival Rolls-Royce, Delage, Horch, Isotta Fraschini and Packard.

Once the hostilities had ended, rather than resume the production of ‘regular’ expensive passenger cars, Minerva signed an agreement with Rover to build it own versions of the then-new Land Rover to satisfy military commissions from the Belgian army and local police forces.

These Antwerp-assembled Land Rovers differed from their Solihull siblings by using steel body panels, mounted on the shorter 80-inch wheelbase only (known as the TT for ‘Tout Terrain’), with a longer 86-inch version following later for both military and civilian use. Unique sloping front wings were the most distinctive feature of the Minerva models though, distinguishing them from all other Landies produced around the world.

In 1956 a serious dispute broke out between Minerva and Rover over the Land Rover licence, bringing TT production (and Minerva’s six decade-long vehicle making career) to an abrupt halt. 

Land Rover Santana 88 Ligero

In 1958 Andalusian agricultural equipment maker Metalúrgica de Santa Ana, SA (Santana) began local Spanish CKD knock down production of license-built Series 2 Land Rovers.

A decade later (just as British Leyland was being formed), the Company changed its name to Land Rover Santana SA and began to develop its own engines and versions of Land Rover models to better suit local requirements, as well as those of the tougher African and South American markets that the Spaniards had begun exporting to.

Selling to these demanding regions where 4x4s had to work hard for their keep enabled the more agile Santana team to adapt its products faster than BL’s Land Rover engineers, resulting in the Spanish operation introducing a wide range of ‘Series’ Landys and technologies quite different to those produced in Solihull.

Santana models featured disc-brakes, turbo diesel engines, taper-leaf and coil springs, single piece windscreens, anatomical seats and Forward Control civilian models some time before their Solihull associates.

One of Santana’s most distinctive Land Rover derivatives, with no direct English equivalent, was the 88-inch Ligero of 1980, a re-styled civilian version of the British Lightweight model, built purely for military use in the UK between 1968 to 1984.

Compared to Solihull’s model, Santana’s 88 Ligero paired a Land Rover Series 3’s grill with severely cut-back front wings, into which rectangular Seat 127 headlamps were mounted (the Spanish half-ton military version having round lights, set into the same chopped-back wings).

Aimed squarely at the leisure and tourist rental markets, the 88 Ligero was fitted with a roll bar and offered in bright and lively colours such as yellow and orange. Santana took a deeper dive into this leisure sector in 1986 with local licensed assembly of soft-top Suzuki SJ and Vitara 4x4s, temporarily dropping all Land Rover production.

Trekker 2-10

The Land Rover look-alike Trekka 2-10 is widely considered to be the only true indigenous vehicle ever to be designed and series-produced in New Zealand.

Eighty per cent of the Trekka was locally-sourced, with the key none-Kiwi-made components being the powertrain and major platform structure taken from a then-new Škoda Octavia, with these parts shipped directly from Škoda’s Czech headquarters in Mlada Boleslav.

Developed by New Zealand’s Škoda importer, Motor Lines (later Motor Holdings), and built in Otahuhu, Auckland, between 1966-1973, the Trekka was a cunning way of sidestepping New Zealand’s import restrictions of the time. As an agricultural vehicle, the Trekka attracted no tariffs, and there were no limits on the number of vehicles that could be built.

With rear-wheel-drive only, the Trekka was powered by the 35PS, 1.2-litre Škoda engine, offering leisurely performance and limited off-road capabilities. The Land Rover-inspired model was launched on 2^nd December 1966 and pitched as the ‘Trekka Agricultural Motor Vehicle’, proving to be popular with urban-based tradespeople, plus anyone who wanted a simple low-cost new vehicle with rugged looks.

The basic, one-colour-only Trekka 2-10 was priced lower overall than the best-selling Morris 1100 of the day and importantly, it was available instantly in an age when import restrictions meant second-hand cars often fetched higher prices than (unobtainable) new ones.

Trekka production really progressed when the early hand-formed steel body panels were replaced by mass-produced items, stamped by HJ Ryans – a local lawnmower manufacturer – with some exports beginning to Fiji, Indonesia and Australia, where it struggled to deflect buyers from their preferred Land Rovers.

When Škoda ceased the production of its original Octavia Estate in 1973, rather than seek out a new engine supplier for the Trekka, its producers chose to end production too, bringing a unique chapter of New Zealand’s vehicle manufacturing to a close. 

Santana PS-10 Anibal

As previously mentioned, in 1986 Santana of Spain changed direction by temporarily dropping all Land Rover production after a 20 year run to commence the licensed assembly of Suzuki’s soft-top Jimny SJ and Vitara 4x4 models for Spain and France.

Having built its last official Land Rover in 1986, in 2002 Santana cheekily re-introduced an unlicensed Defender 110 facsimile of its own design, called the PS-10 Anibal.

Although not an approved Land Rover product, Santana’s ‘new’ PS-10 Anibal 4x4 was very obviously derived from a Defender, using older Series Land Rover body pressings, updated to give this off-road clone a more individual and modern appearance.

Santana even had the balls to briefly offer Anibal long-wheel-base station wagon and pick-up models in the UK (as well as mainland Europe), selling the PS-10 right under Land Rover’s nose as a direct Defender rival, but at a more affordable price. The Spanish 4x4 may have lacked the equipment and kudos of the British original, but its lower price did attract a few farmers and construction companies before Santana formed an alliance with Iveco in 2006 and rapidly withdrew PS-10 sales.

Iveco Massif

Having formally severed its links to Land Rover in 1983, in 2006 Santana signed an agreement with Fiat’s commercial vehicle maker Iveco to co-develop new products.

Santana’s PS-10 Anibal was soon re-worked and re-launched as the Iveco Massif, effectively killing off the Santana brand in 2011, and enhancing this blatant Defender competitor as a direct descendant of the original utility Land Rover which spawned the entire Santana operation back in the late 1950s.

At the time of its launch, Iveco said that its new Massif was a rugged four-wheel-drive vehicle, built for serious off-road applications that signalled the Fiat Group’s return to its 4x4 utility roots, harking back to the sure-footed Fiat Campagnola 4x4 of the early 1950s.

Available with both short and long wheelbases for civilian and military use, the Massif promised much, being launched via Iveco’s considerable Continental European dealer network. After a short spell of sale though, the Massif was suddenly dropped, for reasons unexplained, although an offspring of Santana’s Land Rover ‘inspired’ Series IV/PS-10 still remains in production; via the Iranian-based Morattab Series IV, as follows.

Morattab Series IV

The Morattab Industrial Manufacturing Company was founded in Tehran in 1957 as an Iranian agent and distributor of commercial vehicles, before branching out into the manufacture of Land Rovers under licence from Rover in 1962.

During the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, Morattab was nationalised without compensation to its founders and rightful owners, with the Company continuing to produce Land Rover Series models uninterrupted, but out of licence as the Rover/Leyland contract was not updated or renewed.

Today, the vehicle maker continues as the now partly privatised Morattab Khodro, with Iran being the last location globally to continue production of a model loosely derived from Rover’s original Land Rover, albeit in quite a modified form.

Morattab’s current (and unsanctioned) Santana-based Series IV models now feature parabolic leaf springs, a one-piece windscreen and fully fitted and trimmed interiors, with the model powered by a locally built 1.8-litre four-cylinder Nissan-derived petrol engine, in place of the 2.2-litre four-cylinder and 3.3-litre six-cylinder engines fitted to the last of the Santana Series IV 4x4s.

Iran’s obscure Morattab Series IV might seem like an unlikely end to the ‘real’ Land Rover Series/Defender story, but as JLR’s brand-new Defender gains market traction, with the intriguing Ineos Grenadier now waiting in the (muddy) sidelines too, the influence of the original classic all-British Landy 4x4 looks set to last long and prosper.

Minerva image courtesy of Bonhams.