BASE VEHICLESeries I 80″BUILT BYLand RoverIN SERVICE1951OPERATED INUnited KingdomPRODUCTIONOne expedition vehicleLAYOUT4 wheels · 80″
The record
Autocar’s contemporary account describes a Land Rover lent by a Calcutta garage for a 26-day drive to Calais, starting on 21 April 1951. A heater, additional fuel tank and jerricans provided support for the journey. The magazine’s retrospective reproduces photographs showing WBD 1462 with a bonnet spare, paired front-mounted fuel cans, a pale windowed rear covering, open rear curtain, shallow roof box and an INDIA oval at the left rear.
The model follows those photographs. Dark green paint and a pale neutral covering are visual approximations: the monochrome photographs do not establish their actual colours. Interior heater and fuel-tank alterations are recorded rather than invented as exterior equipment. The existing queue’s operating-country list records the route rather than the operator’s nationality; it is preserved there as inherited data, while this record identifies the British magazine as the operator.
Specification
MANUFACTURERLand Rover
MANUFACTUREDSeries I 80-inch; 1951 expedition
PRODUCTION RUNOne expedition vehicle
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INUnited Kingdom
REGISTRATIONWBD 1462
WHEELBASE80 inches
CREWW. P. Mitchell and Jimmy Mandle
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINESeries I
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE80″
CATEGORYSpecial · Expedition & Campers
Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.