when was the land rover defender first built
1991 1983 in the 1980s
title: Land Rover Defender text: Land Rover Defender The Land Rover Defender (initially called the Land Rover Ninety and Land Rover One Ten) is a British four-wheel drive off-road vehicle developed in the 1980s from the original Land Rover series which was launched at the Amsterdam Motor Show in April 1948. After a continuous run of 67 years production finally ended on 29 January 2016 when the last Land Rover Defender, with the number plate H166 HUE, rolled off the production line. A special edition Defender Works V8, with 400bhp, was announced in January 2018. The next-generation model, codenamed L663, will be completely redesigned and title: Land Rover text: are currently assembled in England, India, China, and other markets. The design for the original vehicle was started in 1947 by Maurice Wilks. It was simply called Land Rover (the terms "Series" and "Defender" are retroactive and only introduced in the 1990s). Wilks, chief designer at the Rover Company, on his farm in Newborough, Anglesey, working in conjunction with his brother Spencer who was the managing director of Rover. The design may have been influenced by the Jeep and the prototype, later nicknamed Centre Steer, was built on a Jeep chassis and axles. The early choice of colour was dictated title: Land Rover Defender text: the 1970s, it fell out of favour as a 4x4 work vehicle while offerings from Toyota and Nissan increased in popularity. Mid-2009, Land Rover expanded the model range to include 110 and 130 cab-chassis, panel van and HCPU versions, and late in the year announced the re-introduction of the 90 4x4 model for sale from early 2010. Defenders, derivatives and clones have been built by a number of manufacturers including Santana Motors in Spain (modified Land Rover clones made from 1958 until the licence expired in 1983; Land Rover derivatives were then developed from 1984–1995), Morattab in Iran (using parts title: Land Rover Defender text: and was the first Land Rover outside North America to be fitted with an automatic transmission. Air conditioning made them very comfortable vehicles. For the UK and Europe they were painted Atlantis blue, a dark green-blue flip-flop colour, and had a safety devices roll-over protection cage for the front seat occupants. In total 1071 50th anniversary Defenders were built; 385 for the UK home market, the rest for Japan, Europe and the Middle East. The second 1998 special edition was the "Heritage", intended to hark back to the early days of Land Rover in the 1940s. Available in 90 or title: Land Rover Defender text: American Specification (NAS) Defenders were extensively modified. The initial export batch was 525 Defender 110 County 4x4s: 500 to the United States and 25 to Canada. They were fitted with the 3.9-litre V8 petrol engine, LT-77 five-speed manual transmission and LT230 transfer case. All of the vehicles were "Alpine" white (except one specifically painted black for Ralph Lauren). They sported full external roll-cages and larger side-indicator and tail-lights. All were equipped with the factory-fitted air conditioning system. For the 1994 and 1995 model year Land Rover only offered the Defender 90, fitted with a 3.9-litre V8 engine and the R-380