The reborn Land Rover Defender was launched to great fanfare this week.
The Defender 110 is the latest Land Rover vehicle to be released by the iconic brand and the vehicle traces its lineage back to the original vehicle of 1948.
While the Land Rover name is known around the world not everyone is aware of the story behind the prototype and the link to the island of Anglesey in North Wales.
Its connection to the island dates back to 1947.
The Wilks family which controlled the Rover company at the time hailed from the Midlands but had strong links with Anglesey, they owned two farms near Newborough.
A team of engineers was invited to Anglesey to help design a new vehicle for farm use.
It was while at Red Wharf Bay on the east coast of the island that Rover's engineering director Maurice Wilks sketched the shape for the original Land Rover in the sand.
The idea was based on the US Army’s Willys Jeep, a multi-purpose vehicle used by the Allies during the Second World War. Maurice Wilks saw the potential of a “go anywhere do anything” vehicle outside of a military environment.
He proposed the idea to his brother Spencer, who was the company’s managing director, and an icon was born.
Once built, the brothers thoroughly tested the prototype on land surrounding both Llanddona and Newborough, where a memorial to Maurice Wilks was unveiled by school pupils in 2011.
The first Land Rover prototype had a tractor-like centrally-mounted steering wheel, to avoid separate left and right-hand drives.
When the production Land Rover appeared, the idea had been scrapped.
The early choice of colour was dictated by military surplus supplies of aircraft cockpit paint, so early vehicles only came in various shades of light green.
After being developed at Rover's factory in Solihull the first Land Rover was unveiled to the world at the Amsterdam Motor Show in 1948.
The first version had a 50bhp 1595cc petrol engine and cost £450 and within the first year the company had produced 8,000.
The rest, as they say, is history.
