The first Land Rover was officially presented in 1948, at the Amsterdam Motor Show. The car was offered in single configuration: open body on 80 inch (2032 mm) short-wheelbase chassis.
In 1950 AWC system was improved: gearbox received additional lever in order to switch transmission between rear wheel drive and all-wheel drive modes. Customers could choose wheelbase length and body configuration. Land Rover became synonym or reliability and superb off-road capabilities.
New Range Rover was considered a vehicle for amateurs among the fans of the Land Rover. Many of them had doubts that new car was as reliable as the previous model. All doubts were dispelled two years later, when a number of Range Rover vehicles, managed by a group of British soldiers under the command of Major John Blashford-Snell, made a rally from Anchorage, Alaska to the Argentine city of Ushuaia. The British Trans-Americas Expedition of 1972 became the first vehicle-based expedition to traverse the Americas from north-to-south, including traversing the roadless Darién Gap.