to the Moroccan and Costa Rican markets by the company. Because of the harsh working lives vehicles endured in these environments, customer feedback on the range meant that Santana were often far more aware of each model's failings than the Land Rover company itself was. Because of the tight financial position in this period of British Leyland (which owned Land Rover), Santana were often better placed than Land Rover was to deal with these failings. This meant that Santana began to engineer its own solutions to common problems into the models it produced and thus Santana's models diverged from Land Rover's original products. Up to the late 1980s the Santana models – supposed to be quickly and cheaply built versions of Land Rover's original product - often ended up being quite different from Land Rover's own vehicles. For instance Santana models featured anatomical seats, disc-brakes, turbo diesel engines, taper-leaf springs, coil springs, and civilian-specification Forward Control versions before the Land Rover equivalents and there was even a civilian version of the Land Rover Lightweight called the "Ligero" which was never released by Land Rover. The Santana Motor Company ended its agreement with Land Rover in 1983 but continued to develop its own range of vehicles which remained visually similar to Land Rover's series and Defender range. Santana's later (non Suzuki licensed) vehicles were developments of the series leaf sprung chassis – the PS-10 and the Iveco Massif, that replaced the Land Rover that was locally assembled there. Poor sales, quality issues and the Fiat/Iveco merger with Chrysler who owned Jeep causing the end of Iveco Massif production by Santana, put the company out of business in 2011, with the models being replaced by the Jeep Wrangler vehicle. See also Austin Gipsy Military light utility vehicle References External links Land Rover International Official website Land Rover USA Official Website Land Rover MENA Official Website Land Rover Official Website Military vehicles of the United Kingdom Off-road vehicles All-wheel-drive vehicles Cars introduced in 1948 1950s cars 1960s cars 1970s cars 1980s cars Series Military light utility vehicles First car made by manufacturer Panel trucks