Land Rover's just formed a new Heritage division that will produce new, warrantied parts for their old trucks. This is exciting for non-owners too; Land Rover's going to set up opportunities for you to drive their classics at a 200-acre off-road area in Warwickshire, England.
Land Rover Heritage, just like the recently-formed Jaguar Heritage outfit, will start making OEM parts for their vehicles that are more than ten years old. That'll start mostly with parts for the Range Rover Classic, Range Rover P38, Discovery 1 and Discovery 2. Key parts for old Series Rovers will be included as well of course, and they're planning to ramp-up production for the oldest Land Rover components gradually as they get their tooling in order.
The company is promising to make their old parts "just like they used to" (for better or worse?) with original tooling methods, as well as provide warranty support for everything. This'll be a great alternative to folks doing restorations or keeping an old Rover on the road which, as a former owner myself, I can promise you is a challenge.
Though I'm sure these new old parts won't come cheap, many of us will still have to go junkyard diving.
John Edwards, the Managing Director of Jaguar Land Rover Special Operations thinks "70% of all Land Rovers manufactured since 1948 are still in existence" and the Heritage division should help keep more of those classics alive longer.
Land Rover Heritage Drives, which will give some folks the chance to drive trucks from the company's pristine "heritage collection," will start running this summer. Guess we'll find out more details on logistics and costs of that as the launch date gets closer.
Image via Land Rover
Andrew P. Collins is Jalopnik's off-road and adventure guy. Shoot him an email at andrew@jalopnik.com or hit him up on Twitter @andr3wcollins to talk trucks.