@Turboman @wammers
Are you guys still going on about this?
I have a simple solution which will enable you guys to know this in the future without any confusion.
Prior to the Discovery coming along in '89, there were two base brand vehicles produced by Land Rover, they were the Range Rover (also known as the Road Rover) and the Land Rover Utility vehicle (Utility Land Rover), this term covered the entire range of Land Rovers going back to Huey all the way up to the point where the Discovery was thought of - when the Discovery came along they then became a 3 vehicle company, The Land Rover, the Range Rover and the new Land Rover Discovery (which was based off the Range Rover btw), but wait... we can't have people getting confused over the new Land Rover and the old style Land Rover Utility? And let's face it, you were confused just reading all that wasn't you? The clever marketing people over at Land Rover saw the problem, and came up with a solution.
They then decided to create a new name for the old Utility Land Rover, it became re-labeled as the Defender within the Solihull factory, but wasn't officially given this name on a vehicle until early '91 - the reason for the delay (because as you may have noticed, the Discovery was launched in '89) was due to some improvements being made to the next generation Defender, taking on some improvements from both the Range Rover and the Discovery, but yet still keeping that classic ruggedness we know and love (most of us anyway
)
So in early '91 the very first commercially produced and badged Defender hit the roads, they were badged as Defender 90 and Defender 110 (to carry on the clear naming from the Land Rover Ninety and Land Rover One-Ten)
We now had a very clear dividing line between the 3 production models and a clear diving line between the historical vehicles (which at that point in time, Land Rover was more about the future than looking back at their past).
So we had:
- Land Rover Defender
- Land Rover Discovery
- Range Rover
What everyone calls the Defender pre '91 was exactly as
@Turboman says, they were either Land Rover Utility Ninety or Land Rover Utility One-Ten.
The reason for the confusion is that the super classic shape of the Land Rover Ninety and Land Rover One-Ten was carried forward, so as the Defender is such an iconic name globally, everyone automatically associates that classic 'Defender' shape to everything going back, right up until you reach the Series 3.
As far as Land Rover is concerned, the Defender hasn't changed much since the first Land Rover utility vehicle to come after the style change away from the Series 3, therefore for simplicity, everything from '83 onwards became tagged as a Defender, although officially there is a defining line in '91 for when the Defender name came about in badges, books and manuals.
For one final touch, in 2007 they dropped the wheelbase number, so the Defender 90 and Defender 110 just simply became known as the Defender, it was no longer badged on the car, although the spaces for the badge remain
Confused?
People who have a 'Defender' produced between late '89 all the way until the officially badged Defender in early '91 are the people who should be most confused though, they are in a weird naming transition period