The Land Master is a civilian all-terrain utility vehicle produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a competitor to the

Land Rover Land Rover is a British brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR currently builds Land Rovers ...

. It incorporated design features that were not then available on the contemporary

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and were only introduced some years later on the

Land Rover Defender The Land Rover Defender (initially introduced as the Land Rover 110 / One Ten, and in 1984 joined by the Land Rover 90 / Ninety, plus the new, extra-length Land Rover 127 in 1985) is a series of British off-road cars and pickup trucks. They c ...

It was tested by the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

, including in forward control form, and one was used by the

Devon and Cornwall Constabulary Devon and Cornwall Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial counties of Devon and Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly) in England. The force serves approximately 1.8 million people over an area of . Hi ...

. The Devon and Cornwall Constabulary vehicle bore the registration OTA114W, and is pictured here. This is the registration displayed on the Land Master survivor image to the right. Money was promised by the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

but the deal fell through. Eventually, the rights to the Land Master were sold to a company called C.K. Farnworth of Crumlin,

Caerphilly Caerphilly (, ; cy, Caerffili, ) is a town and community in Wales. It is situated at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley. It is north of Cardiff and northwest of Newport. It is the largest town in Caerphilly County Borough, and lies wit ...

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. The company had industrial premises and several vehicles were produced in Oakdale in South Wales. The prototype vehicles were made at Trelavour Road Garage,

St Dennis, Cornwall St Dennis ( kw, Tredhinas) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is situated on the B3279 between Newquay and St Austell. St Dennis had a population of 2,696 in the 2001 census, increasing to 2,810 at ...

, and were based on

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parts. The chassis was made of tubular steel so that when it went over bumps and steep angles, dirt on top of the chassis rails would fall off, unlike Land Rovers of the time. All body panels were made of aluminium. Surviving vehicles are very rare, one Land Master (possibly the only one actually sold to a customer) is rumoured still to be on the road in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

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,(this vehicle which was the third one built, is still in existence although not on the road) and another is kept by the original builders at St. Dennis. A very tatty survivor was spotted near Hexham in Northumberland in the early 1990s and two images of survivors can be found on the web - though it is currently unclear which company made them or at what date. Land Master survivor

The only moving images in the public domain are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQCvJmYx4wc Engines available included a 3.8 L

Perkins Perkins is a surname derived from the Anglo-Saxon corruption of the kin of Pierre (from Pierre kin to Pierrekin to Perkins), introduced into England by the Norman Conquest. It is found throughout mid- and southern England. Another derivation com ...

diesel Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...

I4 rated at , a 4.0 L Perkins

V6 rated at , or a 5.9 L

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

petrol Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...

V8 rated at . It is rumoured that the vehicle in Kent may have been retrofitted with a VM diesel. A successor business to those originals mentioned above introduced a version of the vehicle that they called Powr4. This seems to have been a very short lived iteration.

External links

POWR4 sales brochure

References

* * * In English and Dutch * 6 page colour POWR4 sales brochure Off-road vehicles All-wheel-drive vehicles Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United Kingdom Companies based in Cornwall {{automobile-stub

See also

External links

References