Land Rover Series - Australia

Australia

Australia has always been an important export market for Land Rovers of all sorts, but especially the utility models. 80-inch Series I models were sold to the Australian government in the late 1940s for work on civil engineering projects such as dams and road construction, which brought the vehicle to the buying public's attention. Large sales followed and in the 1950s Land Rover established factories in Australia to build CKD kits shipped from the Solihull factory. The Land Rover continued to sell well throughout the 1960s in Series II guise, commanding some 90% of the off-road market, and with practically every farm having at least one Land Rover.

The Series III continued this success in the early 1970s, but from the middle of the decade sales declined. A large coal export deal to Japan relied on the subsequent import of Japanese cars and other goods, a combination of this increasing competition and increasingly poor quality of the components being shipped from Britain meant that Land Rover's dominance slipped. A problem specific to Australia was the always-limited supply of new Land Rovers. Leyland's factory never had the capacity to meet possible demand and the need to import almost the entire vehicle in kit form from Britain restricted the supply and manufacturing process further. This led to a long waiting list developing for the Leyland product whilst commercial operators could receive large fleets of Japanese vehicles very quickly. The other problems faced by Land Rover were the same throughout its export markets- compared to the Japanese competition, the Land Rover was underpowered, unreliable and slow with a poor ride quality, despite their superior off-road ability. Poor rust-proofing and low-quality steel used in comparison to the Japanese vehicles turned the buyers away in large numbers and by 1983, with the introduction of the One Ten, the Toyota Land Cruiser became the best-selling 4×4 in Australia.

In the early 1980s, Land Rover Australia had made some changes to the vehicle to try to combat this sales decline. As well as the fitting of the V8 petrol engine in the 1979 "Stage One", as in the rest of the world, Australia also received the same vehicle with the option of a 3.9-litre 89 hp (66 kW) four-cylinder Isuzu diesel engine. This helped slow the sales decline, but the rest of the vehicle's shortcomings let it down. The One Ten was also available with this engine, and a turbocharged version producing in excess of 100 horsepower (75 kW) powered the military 6×6.

• Land Rover Series III Pickup

• Short wheelbase Land Rover Series III