In a video posted online, Land Rover returns to the very beach where the Wilks brothers first drew the concept of the Land Rover in the sand almost 70 years past.
In a video posted online, Land Rover returns to the very beach where the Wilks brothers first drew the concept of the Land Rover in the sand almost 70 years past.
In the early post war years, Maurice Wilks, Rover’s Engineering Director, met his brother on the very same beach, at Red Wharf bay in Anglesey, UK. There, he drew his idea for the new vehicle in the sand to show the idea to his brother, Spencer Wilks, then Managing Director of The Rover Company.
The Wilks family owned property in the vicinity of the beach and Maurice, inspired by the WWII jeeps left behind by allied troops, wanted to create a utility vehicle that would serve the various needs of a country estate. The design, fleetingly etched in the sand that day, lives on still recognizable in today’s Defenders, due to end production in 2015.
To mark the passing of the most iconic 4x4 vehicle in the history of motoring, Land Rover hired a team of artists to create a large scale drawing of a Land Rover in the sand at Anglesey. To create the image, they used six vehicles, each of which defines a significant point in the development of the Land Rover model. A Land Rover Series I, II, and III, an early 90, a 2014 Defender 90 Hardtop and a Defender 110 Station Wagon. The Series II used was once a Wilks family vehicle and was driven for the event by the sons of the Wilks brothers.
The vehicles each towed a 12-foot wide chain harrow to make the markings in the sand. The path was plotted in advance by GPS and was finished just as the tide rolled in to begin washing it all away. The sand drawing was, at 1 kilometer in length, the largest sand drawing ever made in the UK.
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