The Land Rover Range Rover (generally known simply as a Range Rover) is a full-sized luxury sport utility vehicle (SUV) from Land Rover, a marque of Jaguar Land Rover. The Range Rover was launched in 1970 by British Leyland. This flagship model is now in its fourth generation.

Jaguar Land Rover has also extended the use of the Land Rover Range Rover sub-brand with the introduction of Range Rover Evoque, the Range Rover Velar and the Range Rover Sport.

The Rover Company (originator of the Land Rover marque) was experimenting with a larger model than the Land Rover Series in 1951, when the Rover P4-based two-wheel-drive “Road Rover” project was developed by Gordon Bashford. This was shelved in 1958, and the idea lay dormant until 1966, when engineers Spen King and Bashford set to work on a new model.

In 1967, the first Range Rover prototype was built (number plate SYE 157F), with the classic Range Rover shape discernible, but with a different front grille and headlight configuration. The design of the Range Rover was finalised in 1969. Twenty-six Velar engineering development vehicles were built between 1969 and 1970 and were road registered with the number plates YVB151H through to YVB177H.

Though being chassis no. 3, the vehicle YVB 153H is believed to have been the first off the production line as a vehicle in that colour was urgently required for marketing. The Velar name was derived from the Italian “velare” meaning to veil or to cover. Range Rover development engineer Geof Miller used the name as a decoy for registering pre-production Range Rovers. The Velar company was registered in London and produced 40 pre-production vehicles that were built between 1967 and 1970. Most of these Velar pre-production vehicles are accounted for and have survived into preservation.

The Range Rover was launched in 1970. In the early 1970s, the Muse du Louvre in Paris exhibited a Range Rover as an “exemplary work of industrial design”.

In 1972, the British Trans-Americas Expedition became the first vehicle-based expedition to traverse the Americas from north-to-south, including traversing the roadless Darin Gap. The specially modified Range Rovers used for this expedition are now on display in the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust collection at Gaydon, Warwickshire.

Between 1974 and 1987, Land Rover vehicles were only sold in the United States through the grey market. The Land Rover company began selling the Range Rover officially in the U.S. on 16 March 1987. From that time until 1993, the U.S. marketing was all in the name of Range Rover, because it was the only model offered in the American market. In 1993, with the arrival of the Defender 110 and the imminent arrival of the Land Rover Discovery, the company’s U.S. sales were under the name “Land Rover North America”.

In 2004, Land Rover launched another model under the Range Rover brand the Range Rover Sport, which was based on the Land Rover Discovery platform, but the new Range Rover Sport has the latest Range Rover platform.

In 2011, the Range Rover Evoque was launched.

In 2002, the third-generation model was introduced, which saw the model move further up-market. Planned and developed under BMW ownership the third generation was to share components and systems (electronics, core power units etc.) with the BMW 7 Series (E38). It was designed to accommodate BMW’s 4.4 litre M62 V8 engines for future models. The manual transmission was dropped entirely, leaving only the automatic. The 7 Series electronics system was being phased out during the development of the third-generation Range Rover and being replaced with the electronics from the BMW 5 Series (E39). Note that there were three “Generations” of the L322, from 2002 until 2005 was the aforementioned M62 BMW V8 with ZF 5HP-24 transmission, going along to 2006 until 2009 a 4.4-litre Jaguar derived engine alongside a 4.2-litre supercharged variant of the Jaguar engine partnered with the ZF 6HP-26 transmission. In 2010 Land Rover fitted the newly designed 5.0 N/A and Supercharged engine with ZF 6HP-26 until the 2012 model year, which saw the end of the L322 production. This list does not give diesel options.

From 2002-2004 the L322 saw a standard BMW E39 electrics system. From 2005-2009 the L322 saw an updated Jaguar derived electrics system with fibre optics and Bluetooth. From 2010-2012 the L322 saw an updated (different from 05-09) Jaguar derived electrics, the first “modern feeling” system.

In MY06 the first exterior update was applied with a slight face-lift of front fascia, tail lamps. Some other slight differences can be found on the “Supercharged” variant. The second exterior update was in 2010, bringing a true modern feel to the L322 with new fascia, tail lamps, side grills, and clear side markers.

The interiors stayed relatively the same with exclusions i.e. Supercharged trim black piano finish until 2006.5, (NAS 2007) where an updated interior was released. Another major change was in 2010.