Land Rover Engines - Santana Engines

Santana Engines

In 1956, the Rover Company held talks with Spanish engineering company 'Metalúrgica de Santa Ana S.A.' (later to be renamed Santana Motor) with the aim of starting Land Rover assembly in Spain. Under the terms of the agreement Santana would initially build Land Rovers from Complete Knock Down kits shipped from Britain, but locally manufactured content would gradually be increased until the entire vehicles were built from scratch in Spain. Santana would also have exclusive sales rights in Spain, South America, Central America and North Africa, selling both Santana- and Land Rover-badged vehicles in these markets where necessary. Production at Santana started in 1958. From 1962 Santana began to improve and modify the Land Rover design to meet the demands of its own markets. These were the common demands of more power, better ride comfort and improved refinement. To this end Santana produced several unique versions of the Land Rover engine designs it had rights to. These included 94-horsepower 3.3 litres (200 cu in) six-cylinder versions of the 2.25-litre petrol and diesel engines in the late 1960s and a 75-horsepower turbocharged version of the 2.25 diesel in 1982.

In the early 1980s when Land Rover was looking for ways to improve its engine range, especially its diesels, the Santana engines were looked at. The 6-cylinder version was considered too large and heavy for the Range Rover but a turbocharged 5-cylinder variant was considered since it provided an ideal blend of power, weight and size. The 2.25TD was studied to provide development information for the Diesel Turbo engine. In the end production reasons meant that Land Rover favoured a diesel version of the Rover V8 instead. When that engine did not reach production Range Rover diesel engines were bought-in from VM Motori.