In the 1960s the demand for the four-wheel drive vehicles significantly increased and Land Rover was at the forefront of new emerging market segment. The company decided to develop a new vehicle that would combine comfort and driving characteristics of a family car with the off-road capabilities Land Rover. The result of their work was Range Rover that was launched into production in 1970, and immediately caused a general admiration. This car was a real breakthrough.
In the early 1970s, the Musée du Louvre in Paris exhibited a Range Rover as an “exemplary work of industrial design”. No other car has ever received such an honour.
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.