The Land Rover name was originally used by the Rover Company for one specific vehicle model, named simply the Land Rover, launched by Rover in 1948. Over the following years it developed into a marque encompassing a range of four-wheel-drive models, including the Defender, Discovery, Freelander, Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Land Rovers are currently assembled in the company’s Halewood and Solihull plants, with research and development taking place at JLR’s Gaydon and Whitley engineering centres. Land Rover sold 194,000 vehicles worldwide in 2009.

Land Rover has had several owners during its history. In 1967 the Rover Company became part of Leyland Motor Corporation and in 1968 Leyland Motor Corporation itself merged with British Motor Holdings to form British Leyland. In the 1980s British Leyland was broken-up and in 1988 Rover Group, including Land Rover, was acquired by British Aerospace. In 1994 Rover Group was acquired by BMW. In 2000 Rover Group was broken-up by BMW and Land Rover was sold to Ford Motor Company, becoming part of its Premier Automotive Group. In June 2008 Ford sold both Land Rover and Jaguar Cars to Tata Motors.

In May 2010, Tata Motors announced that it plans to build Land Rovers (as well as Jaguar cars) in China as the company seeks to cut costs and expand sales. Tata announced in October 2010 that they have scrapped plans to close one of the two facilities in the midlands (Castle Bromwich, where the Jaguar XJ and XK cars are assembled, and Solihull, where Land Rovers are built).

Single Marque Clubs – Bring together owners of a specific model or series of vehicle such as the Series One Club, or the Discovery Owners Club. Clubs based on ownership of earlier series vehicles tend to attract the purists amongst Land Rover owners whose interests often relate to restoration of their vehicles to their original condition.

Special Vehicle Clubs – At various times Land Rover have produced vehicles for specific events or on a specific theme, most notable are the Camel Trophy and G4 Challenge vehicles which have been sold on to the general public, and a range of Defenders that were loosely based on the custom vehicles produced for the Tomb Raider motion picture.

Regional Clubs – These break down into two groups, competitive and non-competitive clubs.

Non-competitive clubs activities generally relate to social events, off road driving or green laning on un-surfaced public highways or ‘pay and play’ days at off road centres.