‘Escaped’ Land Rover prototype could be yours

A one-off Land Rover prototype that survived the works’ gas axe is coming under Cheffins’ hammer on 16 August.

Believed to have been built between 1950 and 1951 as an amphibious/all-terrain vehicle it surfaced in the early 1960s during a Land Rover dealer’s demonstration day. Sold as spares to a Rover employee who re-built it, it stayed in their hands for 30 years, selling it to a Dutch collector in the 1990s.

That Dutch collector then abandoned it before its future was secured when it was bought by Adam Bennett, a Land Rover enthusiast who re-restored it.

“This was Land Rover’s first attempt at making an all-terrain vehicle, as at the time, there was nothing like a quad bike or anything which could be used in all conditions. It was a tremendous thing which they had come up with but for whatever reason the idea was canned,” Adam Bennett says.

“It was never supposed to see the light of day and it would have been a mammoth operation for Land Rover to have made. So much work would have gone into creating it and then testing it, which I think is why the person who worked on it decided to save it. It’s impossible for prototypes to get out of the factory nowadays, so this really is a museum-grade, ultra-rare artefact.”

Offered with a £10,000-12,000 estimate pretty it certainly isn’t but riding on WW2 aircraft tyres not much should impede its progress.