Series I 109″.

The Land Rover was conceived in 1947 by Rover's chief designer Maurice Wilks as a stop-gap to keep the Rover Company's Solihull works busy while post-war steel rationing throttled car production. Inspired by a war-surplus Jeep on his Anglesey farm, Wilks laid out a light four-wheel-drive workhorse whose body panels were formed from Birmabright aluminium alloy - plentiful when steel was not - and whose first colour famously came from surplus aircraft-cockpit green paint. Launched at the Amsterdam Motor Show on 30 April 1948 on an 80-inch wheelbase with a 1.6-litre petrol engine and priced at £450, it was expected to sell perhaps 5,000 a year; roughly 8,000 were sold in the first full year and the 'stop-gap' rapidly outsold Rover's cars.

The formula was steadily developed. A larger 1,997 cc 2.0-litre petrol engine arrived in 1952, and in 1954 the 80-inch chassis gave way to an 86-inch model while a new 107-inch pickup added a genuine load-carrier to the range for the first time. Station wagons ran alongside the utility models: the coachbuilt Tickford wagon of 1949 sold only about 700 copies, but the factory-bodied seven-seater on the short chassis and, from September 1955, the five-door ten-seat wagon on the 107-inch chassis established the layout the marque would carry for decades.

In mid-1956 both wheelbases were stretched two inches, to 88 and 109 inches, creating the definitive dimensions Land Rover would keep for a quarter of a century. The stretch was made ahead of a new engine: extra length in the front chassis made room for Rover's first diesel, a 2,052 cc overhead-valve four producing around 52 bhp, introduced as an option in 1957. The 109-inch was sold as a pickup, hard top and soft top load-carrier, while the five-door station wagon stayed on the old 107-inch chassis - the only Series I never offered with the diesel - until the end of production; a 109-inch wagon had to wait for the Series II.

Civilian vehicles of the late Series I era were overwhelmingly painted in Rover's bronze greens, with Deep Bronze Green regarded as the standard finish; period paint lists and Land Rover Classic's later 'Reborn' restorations also document Light (Pastel) Green, RAF Blue and Dove Grey, the last seen mainly on export and station wagon vehicles. Military, fleet and fire-service orders could specify their own schemes, and long-wheelbase Series I fire engines, ambulances and expedition vehicles survive in numbers.

In April 1958 Rover announced the Series II, retrospectively naming its predecessor the Series I. Around 211,000 Series I Land Rovers of all wheelbases had been built in the decade since 1948 - a total often rounded to 'over 200,000' - and the model's reputation for indestructibility means an unusually high proportion survive, sustained by a huge club, parts and restoration scene. The very first pre-production car, HUE 166, is preserved, and in 2016 Land Rover Classic began buying back and restoring Series I vehicles under its 'Reborn' programme, finished in the five period colours of the original.