1949 Land Rover Series One 80"

Description

Rare early Land Rover with 'ring pull' gearbox; fully restored about four years ago and only 3,000 miles since; wonderful condition throughout

Although it was unveiled at the Amsterdam Motorshow in April 1948, the first Land Rover did not roll off the production line until July of that year and as much of it was still being hand-built, production was painfully slow to begin with, with around 100 being built each week. Improvements were constantly being made and very few of the early models were exactly alike until the production process had been refined and standardised.

First registered in Suffolk in August 1949, this particular Series One 80” is among the first few thousand made and has many special features that were absent from later models, including the ring-pull gearbox, lights behind the grill, dip switch on the centre of the steering wheel, rear ‘D’ lamps and spade back seats.

Our vendor discovered ‘Lily’, as she is affectionately known, in December 2020 in a nice dry barn where she had been laying dormant for at least 15 years. Owner of a plant hire company, our vendor had been running a fleet of Land Rovers since 1961 and his aim was to restore Lily to showroom condition in time for the 60^th Anniversary of his business.

Over the next few months Lily was stripped to her bare bones and meticulously rebuilt while preserving as much originality as possible. The original 1.6 petrol engine and running gear were all fully rebuilt by Andrew Coathupe; the chassis is also the original, painstakingly restored by Mark Taylor, who also did the bodywork; even the radiator is the original unit with a new core.

Although originally painted Bronze Green, our vendor preferred a lighter Authentic Sage Green so Lily was professionally repainted in this shade by S&P Paint Shop. Many technical challenges were overcome and much time was spent sourcing correct replacements for parts beyond repair, the vendor estimating that well over £20k was invested in the project. The restoration was finally finished on 4^th December 2021, exactly a year to the day since our vendor had first clapped eyes on Lily.

Although there are no invoices to show the full extent of the work carried out, the vehicle speaks for itself and was featured in a 7-page article in the Series One Club magazine, Legend, which shows many photos of the restoration in progress. Still in our vendor's company livery, these are only stickers and could be easily removed if desired.  

Lily has now covered around 3,000 miles since she was returned to the road so she is nicely run-in and she has been starting promptly and running very nicely indeed as we have moved her around on site. Although MOT-exempt, she flew through this test in April this year with no advisories recorded.

As you can see in the photos, Lily is in great shape for a lady her age and no doubt has at least another seven decades or more of useful life ahead of her.

Consigned by James Dennison – 07970 309907 – james.dennison@brightwells.com