Seventy-year-old automobiles are rare. Unrestored 70-year-old automobiles are even rarer. Even rarer still are the ?barn finds,? lost and forgotten automobiles discovered after years, often decades, of neglect and decay in some obscure barn or warehouse. But even among barn finds, one almost never finds the very first example of its kind, let alone one as significant as this: the first Land Rover ever, according to Land Rover itself, which the artisans and engineers at Jaguar Land Rover Classic are commencing to restore as part of Land Rover’s 70th anniversary activities in 2018.

Technically speaking, this 1948 preproduction prototype would be considered a ?garden find,? which sounds like a term the British might use instead of ?barn find,? but in this case, it appears to be true. According to Land Rover, the rusty old truck (named Huey, allegedly) was one of three Land Rover prototypes that were shown at the 1948 Amsterdam auto show, and it had been missing for more than 60 years before being found in 2016 in some chap?s garden just a few miles away from the Solihull, England, location where it was built all those decades ago. As one of the original launch vehicles, this one features thicker aluminum body panels, a removable rear tub, and a galvanized chassis. Land Rover considers it the world’s most historically significant unrestored Land Rover. We won’t argue with that characterization. (Source: Land Rover Classic Works)
Once Huey came to Land R...