The record
For the Royal Commonwealth Tour of 1953–54 Rover built a small number of ceremonial Land Rovers — open review vehicles with a smooth-sided body, a raised rear compartment behind the cab, chrome grab rails round the back so the Royal party could stand and be seen, and fittings well above anything the standard Series I offered — in Royal Claret. The State III cars followed to the same specification as the State IV tour vehicles. Chassis 5710-2615 was the last of them, and Rover kept it: painted dark blue instead of claret, it was a review car the company could lend to dignitaries who were not royal.
It went into service in 1955 when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan used it at the opening of the Hyde Park underground car park, worked the Royal Show at Stoneleigh among other events, and in 1984 carried Olympic ice-dance champions Torvill and Dean through Nottingham on their victory parade. Rover stored it at Solihull with its other ceremonial vehicles until it was retired around 1987–88, still running. Bonhams sold it at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon, on 29 June 2003 for £12,650. The Bonhams photograph shows it as modelled: dark blue with a pale coach line, an open cab with no doors behind a clear windscreen, grey leather seating, chrome bumper, the rails round the rear, and body-colour wheels with domed chrome hub caps; the source gives neither engine nor wheelbase, and the 86-inch nominal figure here is the Series I chassis of the period rather than a recorded dimension.
