Solihull, West Midlands – Land Rover has celebrated the 48th anniversary of the original Range Rover prototype, built in January 1969 as the Velar, by compressing nearly five decades of automotive history into 85 seconds.
The video shows how the boxy development mule became one of the most recognisable shapes in motoring, morphing from one model to the next, charting the evolution of what was arguably the very first SUV.
Velar, in case you’re wondering, is an anagram derived from five of the letters that form Land Rover, and was used to disguise the prototype ahead of its official launch as the Range Rover in 1970.
The evolution of the Range Rover is shown using these models:
1969
Range Rover Prototype (Velar)
1970
Range Rover Classic (two-door)
1973
Range Rover Classic (Suffix C)
1981
Range Rover Classic (four-door)
1994
Second-generation Range Rover (P38a)
2001
Third-generation Range Rover
2012
Fourth-generation Range Rover
2014
Fourth-generation Range Rover Long Wheelbase
2015
Range Rover SVAutobiography
2016
Range Rover SVAutobiography Dynamic