Charles Spencer King, the engineer behind the original Range Rover, has died in the UK, aged 85.
Spen King passed away as a result of injuries sustained in a bicycle crash with a van two weeks earlier.
He was apprenticed to Rolls Royce at the age of 17, but three years later moved across to Rover as his uncles, Spencer and Maurice Wilks, were running the company. There, he worked on Rover's gas-turbine prototypes. In 1948, the Wilks brothers jointly founded Land Rover.
King was responsible for the Rover-based Marauder sports car in 1950 and many of Rover's experimental and prototype vehicles. In 1959 he became chief engineer of New Vehicle Projects and headed the team that developed the advanced Rover P6 series, introduced as the 2000 in 1963. He was also behind the Triumph Stag, TR6 and TR7 and had a big influence on the Metro.
Spen King's vision "to combine the comfort and on-road ability of a Rover saloon with the off-road ability of a Land Rover," was his most famous. The 1970 Range Rover was the result, and the iconic off-roader recently celebrated 40 years of production. He retired in 1985.
Proving that he was ahead of his time, in his later career, he championed Rover's ECV (energy conservation vehicle) concepts, exploring technology such as lightweight materials, aerodynamics and more efficient engines -- all aspects of manufacturing that are becoming commonplace today.
His contribution was acknowledged by Land Rover when the company released a limited edition of the Range Rover in 1990. The Range Rover CSK (from King's initials) marked the 20th anniversary of vehicle production and paid tribute to the man behind it.
In 2004, his criticism of SUV owners who drive their vehicles in urban areas was reported. King was dismayed that vehicles like the Range Rover he created were regarded as status symbols, "but later incarnations of my design seem to be intended for that purpose."
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