UK - Early Rail Rover

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Here is a quaint old poster of one of the first Rail Rovers (and Land Rovers - looks like a Series I)! Note that it is pulling a wagon with Land Rover bodies on!

[John Ashworth]

Kevin, is there an easy way of telling a Series I from a Series II? I used to drive a Series IIA in southern Sudan and that looked much like this one. They look the same to me until the Series III, where the headlights move out from the radiator grill onto the front mudguards.

[Martin Coombs]

Kevin, is there an easy way of telling a Series I from a Series II? I used to drive a Series IIA in southern Sudan and that looked much like this one. They look the same to me until the Series III, where the headlights move out from the radiator grill onto the front mudguards.

Series Is have slab-sided bodies, without the tumble-home at waist level. The photo shows a Series II, as built from 1957-8 onwards.

I think I am right in saying that the lights moved out to the wings as Series IIA, but that the door hinges became much more rectangular and the grills became plastic when Series III was introduced.

Martin Coombs (who had a 1950 80", and a 1956 107", Series Is)

[John Ashworth]

Thanks, Martin. The one I drove might have been a Series II, not IIA - it was in the early 1980s and I don't have such clear memories, except that I know the headlights were on the radiator grill. Some of the Series III/109s which I drove in Sudan 25 years ago are still in normal everyday use (ie not as restored collectors' items but just being driven by ordinary people, usually with very limited servicing and maintenance); I've seen two of them within the last year or so.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Thanks Martin. That shows what happens when you just glance and assume!!!!

Here is a nice lot of posters of Series I's....

The first and second show the aluminum trim that used also to be a feature! Hay today, hens tomorrow!

In the second poster the sign needs changing - should read "except for OLD Land Rovers"!

And the last shows those strange station wagons when the bodies were still wood framed!

I think in those days as well you could have any colour you wanted, provided it was green???? I only remember olive and pale greens.....