British marque Land Rover will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2018, celebrations will open with the restoration of the vehicle that started it all, Huey, one of the first three pre-production Land Rovers which first debuted at the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show.
The vehicle has effectively been missing for years, since the sixties, but was discovered in a garden after spending 20 years in a Welsh field. The vehicle was found only a few miles from where it was originally built in Solihull, UK.
It will take the team behind the Land Rover Series I Reborn programme a year to preserve the prototype and bring it back to its former glory and a drivable condition.
Jaguar Land Rover Classic Director, Tim Hannig, said, “This Land Rover is an irreplaceable piece of world automotive history and is as historically important as ‘Huey’, the first pre-production Land Rover. Beginning its sympathetic restoration here at Classic Works, where we can ensure it’s put back together precisely as it’s meant to be, is a fitting way to start Land Rover’s 70th anniversary year.
“There is something charming about the fact that exactly 70 years ago this vehicle would have been undergoing its final adjustments before being prepared for the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show launch – where the world first saw the shape that’s now immediately recognised as a Land Rover.”
The process of restoration will not be an easy one as the Jaguar Land Rover Classic team aim to restore Huey with the unique special features it possessed as a pre-production vehicle. Thicker aluminium alloy body panels, a galvanised chassis and a removable rear tub are all on the agenda but the patina will be preserved alongside the original light green paint which first covered Huey in 1948.
Previous owners of Huey will be invited to the Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works facility to share memories of their time with the historic vehicle and to witness its transformation.
This project is only one of many events which will celebrate Land Rover’s past, present and future throughout 2018.
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