The history of Land Rover: World’s most famous off-roader celebrates 70th anniversary – but what’s the best ever model?

1948 Land Rover Series I launched at the Amsterdam Motor Show

1953 Long Wheelbase version of the Series I is introduced

1956 Oxford and Cambridge teams complete on London to Singapore expedition in Series I

1958 Land Rover Series II unveiled with more refined design

1970 Original two-door Range Rover (the Classic) goes on sale

1971 Land Rover Series III launched

1972 Range Rover crosses Darien Gap on 18,000-mile Trans-America expedition

1976 1,000,000th Land Rover built

1979 A Range Rover wins the inaugural Paris-Dakar rally (and again in 1981)

1981 Land Rover begins legendary partership with Camel Trophy

1981 Four-door Range Rover released

1989 Land Rover Discovery, the third Land Rover model, goes on sale

1990 Original ‘Landie’ relaunched and renamed Defender

1994 Second generation Range Rover launched

1997 All-new Freelander is unveiled with innovative new technology: Hill Descent Control

2001 Third-generation Range Rover with all-round independent air suspension revealed

2003 Inaugural G4 challenge sees 16 teams traverse USA, South Africa and Australia

2004 Range Stormer Concept previews performance Range Rover and three-door body

2004 Discovery 3/LR3, the third-generation Discovery, launched at New York Motor Show

2005 All-new Range Rover Sport unveiled

2006 Freelander 2/LR2 launched. The first Land Rover to be manufactured at Halewood

2008 LRX concept car previews design language of a new luxury compact SUV

2009 Fourth generation of the Land Rover Discovery introduced

2010 Range Rover Evoque, the world’s first luxury compact SUV, makes global debut

2012 Fourth-generation Range Rover introduced – the first all-aluminium SUV

2013 New generation of Range Rover Sport unveiled at New York Motor Show

2014 Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division is officially launched

2014 Range Rover Sport SVR debuts, the fastest, most agile, most powerful Land Rover

2014 Discovery Vision Concept previews design vision for new family of Discovery vehicles

2014 Launch of Discovery Sport, a new premium compact SUV with 5+2 seating

2015 Trio of end-of-line Defender editions revealed with biggest sand drawing in UK

2015 Exclusive Range Rover SVAutobiography long wheelbase launched in New York

2015 Evoque Convertible becomes world’s first luxury compact SUV convertible

2015 One-of-a-kind Land Rover ‘Defender 2,000,000’ sells for £400,000 at charity auction

2016 Last Defender rolls off the production line

2016 All-new Discovery with world-first remote Intelligent Seat Fold technology launched

2017 Land Rover launches the fourth Range Rover, the Velar

2018 Limited Edition Range Rover SV Coupé debuts at Geneva Motor Show