Thread: Australias Oldest Land Rover

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

No, I dont have it or know where it is, hence this thread. It would be interesting to find out who has it....authenticated of course and even a list of perhaps the ten oldest in Australia.....or has this already been done?

Well it's been a few weeks now, there has been no sign of the centre steer, no uncovered pre production vehicles, not even a series 3 thinly disguised on gumtree as a Tickford welder with a pre production fire engine tub.

Looks like R860004 retains its crown as the oldest production vehicle, while L48 is the one and only pre pro to grace our shores.

There are pre 1500 survivors in most states, if you are interested it is worth while getting along to your local British car day / Land Rover club meeting and comparing a pre 1500 vehicle alongside a later version. Then you can see the differences first hand.

Andy.

Originally Posted by andy_d110

while L48 is the one and only pre pro to grace our shores.

Hi Andy

Where do you look for the identification number for the pre production build, such as L48?

There are pre 1500 survivors in most states, if you are interested it is worth while getting along to your local British car day / Land Rover club meeting and comparing a pre 1500 vehicle alongside a later version. Then you can see the differences first hand.

There is only a small handful of known pre 1950 Land Rovers in Tasmania.
Lets see if the holy grail of Land Rovers shows up or they have already been all found.
.

Originally Posted by wrinklearthur

Hi Andy

Where do you look for the identification number for the pre production build, such as L48?
.

The best place to find one would be Gaydon in England!

There is a book out called "Land Rover the Formative years", this covers from the centre steer onwards (It's available from the Series one club). There is a big section about the pre pros and the variations of them all. The only one I have seen is L48, this has the plate on the bulkhead like 48/49's but with L48 on it. Some of the early pre pros have a stencil of the chassis number on the number 2 crossmember as well.

Note crossmember below radiator and wooden block on the bonnet for the windscreen support.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Note crossmember below radiator and wooden block on the bonnet for the windscreen support.

Thanks for posting the photos Diana,

As I said in post #67 you can now see for yourself in a period photo of Pre Production R 02. As mentioned by Andy the number was on the second crossmember (the front bumper bar was welded on at that stage).

To differentiate the grilles:

Knowing that the perimeter shape and size are very close - and the mounting holes in the plates are in the same position relative to the radiator support panel then when you compare the early and then later (say 1949/50) lights behind type grilles:

The first grilles had 28 vertical kinked flat strip "bars" and 16 horizontals. The two end verticals were very close to the perimeter rod - there is about 1/8" gap. Likewise the lowest horizontal - about 1/2" to the perimeter. The top horizontal starts in the third full width inboard square from the ends and is about 3/4"down from the curved perimeter at its highest point. There is a gap (ie non-continuous strip) where it approaches the fixing plate from both ends but is not attached to the plate at all.
The plate through which the fixing bolt passes is 7/8"wide by 1 3/8"deep and is attached to the upper perimeter frame rod and then to the second horizontal. Effectively the mounting hole is below the first row of grille holes.

Later grilles have 27 vertical strips and 15 horizontals. The two end verticals are about 7/16" to 1/2" from the perimeter rod. The bottom and top horizontals are about 1" from the perimeter rod. The top horizontal starts in the first full width inboard square from the ends.
In these grilles the fixing bolt plate is attached at three points to the strips, the first horizontal strip is just below the mounting hole and the 6th inboard vertical strip starts below the hole where it attaches to the plate.

In early grilles the square mesh holes seem to average around 7/8" while the later grilles are 15/16". If you count the very thin partial "squares" there are 29 x 17 in the first grilles and 28 x 16 in the later ones.

Told you it was better than rivet counting

Bob

Were there any of the first production painted off white or a light grey ?

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Note crossmember below radiator and wooden block on the bonnet for the windscreen support.

No badge on that one either.

Hi All,

Great thread and fantastic photos.

Here is a link for the research I did on the 48 models in Australia back in the 1990s that followed on from research done in the 1980s by Anthony Maeder and Bob Atkins.

Login

There is also a link to the Australian Classic Car news article I wrote on Australian 1948 models in 2004. Since then pre pro L48 has made its way to Australia.

Yes you will have to sign into the S1 club forum to get it.

At the time I wrote down all the 80" vehicles dispatched to Australia and NZ. It is around 10,000 vehicles. I supplied the raw data recently to the NZ guys for their vehicles. They can tidy it up as it is hand written and make a database from it. I'm happy to do so here with the Oz info as well as long as it is made available for everyone to use once it is put into a usable format.

Cheers