The Range Rover was launched in June 1970 under the marketing slogan "A Car For All Reasons." Designed under Charles Spencer King, the vehicle combined the off-road capability of Land Rover's Series vehicles with genuine road performance: a top speed of around 100 mph and acceleration from rest to 60 mph in under 15 seconds, achieved through a detuned 135 hp version of the Buick-derived Rover V8 engine displacing 3,528 cc. The V8 was an all-aluminium unit originally acquired when Rover purchased the tooling rights from Buick in the 1960s.
What distinguished the Range Rover from other four-wheel-drive vehicles of its era was the combination of permanent four-wheel drive, coil spring suspension with long travel on all four wheels, and hydraulic disc brakes at each corner. The coil springs — chosen after Charles Spencer King drove a Rover P6 across rough scrubland at the Solihull factory site — gave substantially more wheel travel than the leaf springs standard on contemporary Land Rovers and rival 4x4s. High ground clearance was maintained across a wide range of suspension movement, making the Range Rover genuinely capable in deep ruts, soft sand, and broken terrain.
The 1970-era Range Rover used a four-speed, dual-range transfer box providing both high and low gear sets, with permanent four-wheel drive and a locking centre differential. The body was constructed largely from aluminium panels hung on a steel safety frame — a method inherited from the Rover P6 saloon — giving a useful combination of light weight and structural rigidity. The wheelbase was 100 inches (2,540 mm).
The suspension geometry allowed axle angle offsets sufficient to maintain wheel contact even on severely uneven terrain. Disc brakes on all four wheels were unusual for an off-road vehicle in 1970 and provided consistent stopping power in conditions where drum brakes could fade or seize.
The 1979 Paris–Alger–Dakar Rally was the inaugural running of what became the Dakar Rally. It departed the Place du Trocadéro in Paris on 26 December 1978 and concluded in Dakar, Senegal, on 14 January 1979. The route covered approximately 10,000 kilometres through France, across the Mediterranean, and then through Algeria, Niger, Mali, and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) to Senegal. A total of 182 competitors entered, divided among 80 cars, 90 motorcycles, and 12 trucks, all classified together for the inaugural edition.
Alain Génestier's Range Rover won the car class, finishing fourth overall behind the motorcycle finishers. The Marreau brothers' Renault 4 came second in the car category. Christophe Neveu — brother of overall motorcycle winner Cyril Neveu — also competed in a Range Rover and had led the early stages of the rally, winning two of the first three stages, before becoming lost on the stage between Arlit and Agadez alongside roughly a quarter of the remaining field.
The Range Rover's victories at the inaugural 1979 Dakar and again in 1981 were among the first demonstrations of the vehicle's off-road credentials in extreme long-distance competition. The wins confirmed what the vehicle's designers had intended: that permanent four-wheel drive, long-travel coil spring suspension, and a powerful light-alloy engine could combine into a vehicle equally useful on tarmac roads and on the most demanding desert terrain.
The first-generation Range Rover Classic remained in production until 1996, its 100-inch wheelbase and permanent four-wheel-drive platform forming the basis for the Land Rover Discovery from 1989. The Dakar victories of 1979 and 1981 belong to the range's early two-door era, before the four-door body arrived in 1981 and before the vehicle moved substantially upmarket through the following decade.