Maurice Wilks, head of design at Rover at the time, is credited with the original idea for the Land Rover immediately after the War. Mr Wilks needed a vehicle which would not only keep going over a iety of ground conditions but would tow, plough, do ious other agricultural tasks and drive other machinery. He tried an ex-WD half-track Ford truck and then a Willys Jeep which might have been more acceptable had it not been an imported product. He came to the conclusion that there was probably a world-wide market for a versatile, go anywhere, Jeep-like vehicle at the same time his brother Spencer Wilks - managing director of Rover - was looking for a stop-gap project to utilize spare factory capacity until such a time as the planned post-war Rover model programme could be put into effect. Various special models were offered from early on by the factory, including mobile compressor and welding vehicles, a fire engine, and an estate car. Rover soon abandoned these models, delegating these projects to outside firms so that they could concentrate on the manufacture of station wagons, pick-ups, double cabs, and hard and soft tops. The rest is history, with a iety of wheelbases offered from 80'', 86'', 88'', 107'', 109'', followed by 90'' and 110'' from 1985, these being known as the Defender Ninety and One Ten.