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The Land Rover project idea had been Maurice Wilks from finding out how useful his old Wartime Jeep was at light farming and small jobs about the place. Wilks had found the Jeep particularly useful during the hard winter of 1947 but also great on beach at Anglesey, where the Wilks family had a holiday home. The idea for the Land Rover as a vehicle for Rover to manufacture was first thought up at Anglesey. The British Government was bringing in some strict rationing for steel supply for Car companies unless they concentrated very strongly on export. The Land Rover had huge export potential for Rover, so the engineering programme developed quickly. A team was made up of Engineers to get the ‘Land Rover’ project going. Overall Maurice Wilks was the technical director and Robert Boyle was chief engineer at Rover. Goddard was development engineer and put in charge of the overall Land Rover test and development programme in 1947. Through the late 40s and early 50s Goddard was in charge of a fleet of development vehicles that lead to the development Land Rover Defender range today. Goddard became Rovers assistant chief engineer of Rover cars and Land Rovers in 1952. Once the Land Rover Series 2 design was finished Goddard moved on from Rover in 1957 to become the technical director of Girling brakes. After he left Rover, Arthur's old job was so big as the company had grown it was split in two. He was replaced by Chris Goode on the Rover Cars engineering and by Jack Pogmore who was in charge of the Land Rovers engineering until 1962. Tom Barton one of the original team from 1947 was put in charge of the Land Rovers Engineering after Pogmore had been moved to an administration role. Goddard had been working on Rover cars in the area of noise and vibration as the Land Rover programme began and ran the development department. Part of the brief to develop the Land Rover idea but also to find out as much as they could about farming machinery and potential uses for the new vehicle, which was hugely successful from its launch at the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show. Numerous photos exist of Goddard and his development driver Johnny Cullen testing the first pre production Land Rover. During this time at Rover he also worked on Rover Gas Turbine project and the fitting of a Gas Turbine engine into a Rover car to make Rovers Jet 1 car. |
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