The record
Lincoln Electric Co. Ltd of Welwyn Garden City designed the L.R. 150 and L.R. 200 as 'package' direct-current welding units for the Land Rover: a single-operator, variable-voltage generator with laminated pole pieces, driven directly from the vehicle's rear power take-off by a belt, so that a site or a farm could have arc welding wherever the Land Rover could reach. The generator sat on a special frame fitted in place of the tailboard, on the tailboard hinge brackets and fastening pins, on any model of Land Rover except the station wagon, and each unit came with a full set of accessories so that welding could begin at once. The L.R. 150 gave 150 amps continuous at 30 volts over a 30–200 amp range and needed 16 bhp at 3,000 rpm; the L.R. 200 gave 200 amps (40–250) for 20 bhp. Net weights were 350 and 400 lb. The Land Rover needed the rear power take-off, an engine speed governor on petrol models and, in the tropics, the oil cooler. Rover approved the unit for use with the Land Rover, and the brochure carries its oval badge.
The vehicle in the brochure, WAC 612, is a Series II 109 soft top of 1958–60 with the frame and generator on the back: the drum with its round end facing rearward, the control panel with its voltage and current dials above it, the pulley and belt guard below where the drive came up from the take-off, and the welding cables coiled on the frame either side. The photographs are black and white; the Pastel Green modelled here is a period Land Rover colour chosen to suit the light tone of the body and is an inference, not a colour the brochure records. Lincoln offered the unit as a conversion for any customer's vehicle, so production numbers are not recorded; the brochure, received by the Automobile Association's technical library on 1 February 1960, is the source of everything here.
