Frazier came across a fascinating post on the Land Rover Series One Club forum. Apparently, there were discussions between Land Rover and Kaiser Willys about working together or a merger. According to this book about the British Motor Industry, the talks occurred in 1958. After exchanging information and design ideas, it appears Kaiser backed out of the deal.However it happened, Land Rover engineers apparently built a hybrid CJ-5 Land Rover. All the photos can be seen at the Rover forum. You’ll need to sign up with the forum to see all the photos.
According to one of the photo’s captions, Using the transmission and chassis from an 88 inch model (shortened to 83 inches) this hybrid LR/Jeep prototype was created by Land Rover as potential partnership discussions between the two companies were held. Ultimately no association was formed but an interesting prototype all the same.
Looks like the rover frame is more stout
Terry, you took the words right out of my mouth for sure.
Those Rover frames rust like crazy, the Jeep frame will outlast it 10 to 1.
Mostly depends on the environment. I’ve seen many rover frames that pretty much look brand new.. But the fully boxed construction, though it’s able to resist thousands more pounds of stress, does tend to hold on to internal moisture even with the drain holes.