All we know about the buyer is that he was called Smith, but SNX was a Solihull prefix sometimes found on factory vehicles – so it’s tempting to assume that he may have been a Rover employee. It wasn’t until 1955 that the company decided to sell her off, and her first private owner registered her on June 25 as SNX 910. Allocated to Rover’s chief engine man, Jack Swaine, she seems to have been run on trade plates for several years a practice that wasn’t unusual back then.
#PREPROS LOG DATE AND TIME STAMP REGISTRATION#
The reason that R07 simply dropped out of sight is that she was never given a registration number when she was owned by Land Rover. And that’s important because, for a pre-production vehicle that has been off the radar for more than 60 years, R07 has survived incredibly well. The good news for enthusiasts who feared that R07 might end up as just another shiny concours vehicle is that she will be sympathetically conserved rather than restored. The front wings and radiator panel have been changed, because they were non-original 86-inch parts, and a missing passenger door replaced, but otherwise R07 has received nothing more than a light clean. Now she’s been revealed in all her garden find glory.
He persuaded the company that it simply had to acquire R07 for its collection, and the deal was done during March/April 2016.Īt the time, JLR was just setting up Classic Works so R07 was temporarily kept under wraps. JLR's Mike Bishop, right, with writer Mark Dixon admiring R07īefore long, word reached JLR’s Mike Bishop, a specialist at its Classic Works facility.
His new friend recognised that the 80-inch had some distinctive pre-pro features – and Reg suddenly realised just what he had stumbled across.
#PREPROS LOG DATE AND TIME STAMP SERIES#
But, by incredible good luck, he happened to meet another Series I enthusiast in a pub and showed him some pictures of the two old Land Rovers. “I thought I might make one good vehicle out of the two!” Reg admits. One of the Series Is was an 88-inch, and it was in much better condition than the other, an 80-inch – which Reg didn’t realise at the time was R07. “He said that if I didn’t want them, he was going to scrap them,” recalls Reg. In the autumn of 2015, her owner walked into a garage owned by Land Rover restorer Reg Mason and asked if Reg was interested in buying a pair of derelict Series Is. What’s more, the engine, gearbox, both axles, bulkhead, seat box and rear tub are original, even though R07 started life with left-hand drive as L07 and was converted (like nearly all the LHD pre-pros) to right-hand drive, probably in the autumn of 1948.īut perhaps the most remarkable part of R07’s story is that she has spent the last quarter-century lying in a Birmingham garden, sunk up to her axles in soil. Her chassis has survived intact because it was galvanised – only the 48 pre-pros had galvanised chassis. The other significant fact about R07 is that she is remarkably original. As such, L07/R07 was one of the first Land Rovers that anyone outside the Solihull factory actually saw.Īs found, R07 had non-original 86in front wings and a later radiator panel, now replaced L05, a mobile welding unit, was on the Land Rover stand indoors L03 and R07 (which at that time was left-hand drive and numbered L07) were outdoors, giving demonstrations to visitors. It’s one of three vehicles that are thought to have been displayed there. How come? Because this example, chassis R07, is believed to have been exhibited outside the 1948 Amsterdam motor show, the first event at which a Land Rover appeared in public. In fact, after HUE 166 – the first pre-production Land Rover to have been built after the fabled Centre Steer – it is possibly the most important vehicle in Jaguar Land Rover’s own collection.
But this long-lost and sorry-looking Series I is one of the most important Land Rovers to have surfaced in recent years.
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