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Thread: Eastnor 50th

  1. #1
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    Eastnor 50th

    Hi all,

    I had the opportunity to attend a press event to celebrate 50 years of Eastnor being used for development testing. I took along my HD video recorder and made a short youtube video of the event.

    Basically they started testing with the unproduced prototype 129" Truck in 1961 and went on from then.

    Here is the video. Enjoy

    Land Rover 50 years at Eastnor - YouTube

  2. #2
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    Whats the story of the bobtailed One Oh Something inch 4 doors soft top with stage 1 front end that we see going through its paces?

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by isuzutoo-eh View Post
    Whats the story of the bobtailed One Oh Something inch 4 doors soft top with stage 1 front end that we see going through its paces?
    It is the first Land Rover coil sprung prototype and made on a 100" chassis in 1976. This vehicle was used as a proof of concept to show the BL board at Eastnor at that time. The main aim was to show that coil suspension on a real load carrying vehicle would work. The dash board is just normal Series 3 but the seats are MGB. So it is quite comfortable. The plan was in place to do this development in two stages. Stage One was the bodywork stage and Stage Two was the suspension stage. Stage Two was obviously called 90 and 110 in production and is now Defender.

    The 100" in Stage Two was supposed to replace the 88" but ended up as the 90 which is really a bit over 92" or so. They only made a very small run of Stage 1 88" vehicles with V8 engines for the middle east.

    Stage Two 110 prototype number 19 from 1979 is also in this video which is the 110 registered HAC 404V. Note it still has a normal series galvanized windscreen frame.

    The first 100" was never made road legal and spent all its working life off road on the Eastnor Estate well into the late 1980s. The rear springs are held in very simply so they can be changed quickly to test different spring rates with different loads. Its a bit of a Legend on the estate. Very well used, but one of those vehicles which is as tough as old nails and has typical farmer type repairs with a piece of fencing wire or baler twine. She is hardly used now days and is kept at Dunsfold, but always just fires up after sitting for years, ready to go. The engine is the 130 BHP version of the Rover V8 so she has a bit of go too.

    I helped Phil at the Dunsfold open weekend over the UK summer put all the vehicles away and got to know the 100" and her character a touch then and thought it would be great to make a small video of these prototypes for friends back in Australia and others outside the UK who only see these vehicles now and then as pics in the glossie mags. I just didn't think the opportunity to do the video would come so soon and at such a spectacular event.

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