In 1970, Charles Spencer King saw something no one else saw. King designed a new truck-like Rover model that year, which he gave the name “Range Rover.” No one could have predicted that he was foreshadowing the future so accurately. King strove to simultaneously improve both the comfort and off-road capability of the traditional Land Rover. He wanted what Range Rover likes to call a “wide breadth of capability,” which makes it at home in the rough and muddy as well as on the city avenue.

But King also wanted the Range Rover to have a dash of style. Despite being a mechanical engineer and not a designer, he personally sketched what would become the final, original Range Rover design, which only went through minor tweaks on the way to actual production. In the process, he gave birth to the luxury SUV.