The world today is more connected than ever – roads have been slapped across terrain that was an off-road trek even in the early 2000s, and if it wasn’t for geopolitics throwing a wrench in it, you could drive from Cape Town to London to Singapore in one go if you wanted to. But there’s still one link that has been crossed only a few times in motorized history: the Darien Gap, a swampy jungle that connects Panama to Colombia.

By the mid-1990s, Land Rover had established a solid foothold in North America. The small dealer network established as Range Rover North America in 1987 had expanded nationwide, and with the new 1994 Discovery a smash hit with a new broader family-oriented market, it was time to make a step that Land Rover had not yet made: a dedicated, consistent dealership design. From this, the green-and-timber "Land Rover Centre" was born.

Reeves Callaway, founder of tuning firm Callaway Cars and a legend in the Corvette world, passed away on July 11th. While he was most well-known for his sports car projects, he also created the 1999 Range Rover Callaway – the first high-performance-oriented Range Rover model sold from a Land Rover dealership, anywhere in the world.

When is a Land Rover not a Land Rover? When it’s a Honda! From 1993-1998, Land Rover produced the Discovery I as the Honda Crossroad for the Japanese market, one of the more unusual examples of badge engineering in automotive history.

The late Queen Elizabeth II had a long history with Land Rovers, with her seventy-year reign lasting for almost the entirety of the company’s history. The Royal Family and Land Rover have had a long and fruitful partnership, with the monarch and family kept in Rovers since King George VI was given the hundredth 80” Series I in 1948. The Queen had many Land Rovers over her long life, but there are a few with which she is most associated.

Since the late Queen Elizabeth II’s first tour of the Commonwealth in 1953-54, she used Land Rover vehicles in many official parades and ceremonies. From Series trucks to the current fourth-generation Range Rover, there is a long history of Royal Review Land Rovers -- a tradition that King Charles III is likely to continue.

With the new Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, Land Rover has begun to move away from their venerable AJ-V8 powerplants. The new Rangies use BMW’s N63 twin-turbo V8, an engine new to Land Rover but with a long history in BMWs.

The Freelander has an atrocious reputation in America, with the insane rate of failure in the 2002-2005 models causing serious brand damage to Land Rover. The V6 engine and 5-speed automatic transmission had intrinsic design failures, and they have fallen off the road massively in the USA in the past two decades since their launch.

"Just stick me in the back of a Land Rover and drive me to Windsor."

That's what the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, reportedly told The Queen to do when he died. About as down-to-earth as you can get as a royal, it seemed the sensible way of dealing with things. With the Duke's passing and funeral, it's now been revealed that that's exactly what will happen with his casket, transporting him to his funeral on April 17th on the back of a custom-built Defender 130. But Prince Philip's life with Land Rovers is a long one, stretching back to the early days of the company.

Think of world leaders and Land Rovers, and of course, you think of the United Kingdom, the Royal Family, and their iconic fleet of Land Rovers and Range Rovers. There's a good number of other Land Rovers in the state fleets of countries around the world, though. Here are a few.

Five years after the final Land Rover-sponsored Camel Trophy, a successor event was announced. The G4 Challenge would become an international, multi-destination, multi-vehicle competition, featuring the same global competitive spirit as the Camel Trophy. There would only be two G4 Challenges, in 2003 and 2006, with a third 2009 event cancelled at the last minute due to the global financial crisis. Though it was never as hardcore of the iconic Camel Trophy events of the 1980s, the G4 Challenge has cemented its place in Land Rover lore.

Land Rover's Lode Lane factory in Solihull, England is iconic and known around the world as the traditional home of Land Rover since 1948. However, not all English-built Land Rovers come out of the ancestral home in the Midlands. Since 2006, Land Rover's smaller transverse engine models have come from Halewood, an old Ford plant on the outskirts of Liverpool.

In 1989, Land Rover released the Discovery. Based on the Range Rover Classic platform, the Discovery would define Land Rover's success in the 1990s. It would also define the balance of the Camel Trophy event, with Discovery taking the mantle of team vehicle from Defenders starting with the 1990 event. With the exception of the final Camel Trophy in 1998, the Discovery would define the rest of the event's life.

From 1993-1995, Camel Trophy would see what some considered the last gasp of its glory years. The event was still solidly focused on the 4x4 expedition, using Land Rover Discoverys. This period would take the event on some of its first multi-national adventures as well. However, the seeds were being sown for the final events, where the focus on off-road driving would be heavily reduced.

The late 1980s would be a sort of "Glory Years" for the Camel Trophy, hosting some of the most iconic iterations of the event. With the Camel Trophy now an extremely popular global event, it also drew better and better teams. Many of the participants in these years would go on to have major roles in the off-road and Land Rover community. It would also feature the only British win ever in the 1989 event, a win for which the victors remain celebrated 31 years later.