Land Rover Legends: Part Four
In this exclusive interview Arthur Goddard reveals the development and history of the first Land Rover
For over 60 years, the figure of Arthur Goddard was largely absent from the weft and warp of Land Rover history. As fact and myth came together over the years to tell the story of the development of the first Land Rover, Arthur’s personal perspectives remained hidden, his contribution to the project and his experiences and opinions uncommented upon. Few, if any, of the many books devoted to the history of the Land Rover that were published throughout the latter half of the last century, and into the early years of the present one, mentioned him by name. Even in 2008, when the company celebrated the 60th anniversary of the first Land Rover, there was no reference to Arthur Goddard. Land Rover themselves seemed to have forgotten him.
But that changed in 2009 when, in one of those chance encounters that make history so fascinating, Arthur was found to be living and working in Brisbane, Australia, by a young Land Rover enthusiast named Alex Massey. Alex shared the news with another Australian Land Rover enthusiast and historian, Michael Bishop, and Arthur’s story was soon being heard for the first time. Land Rover enthusiasts and historians were instantly captivated, all keen to hear both Arthur’s story and, perhaps most importantly, whether it would reveal anything regarding the development and early history of this most iconic of vehicles.
Would Arthur have anything to tell us regarding the fabled 1947 Centre Steer prototype, built using a Jeep chassis, axles, steering and body fittings, with a 1389cc four-cylinder petrol engine from the contemporary Rover 10 hp saloon car? For many years, the story had been that only one was built and dismantled soon afterwards. Others have maintained that up to three were constructed, and finding one hidden in a barn remains the Holy Grail for many fans of the marque.
And was the vehicle really seen by the Rover Company as a stop-gap vehicle, one that would generate both employment for the company’s workforce and also hopefully earn those all-important export orders, which were very much the focus of Atlee’s post-war Labour government,
established? And how did the company gear-up to mass production by the end of 1948, following the appearance of the first prototype at the Amsterdam Motor Show in March that year? Was the vehicle really panelled in aluminium simply because there was plenty of this material around at the time, surplus to wartime requirements, while steel was in short supply? Were the early vehicles painted pale green to use up wartime paint stocks that were available at the factory, having been used for aircraft interiors? Arthur’s memory of events proved to be pin-sharp, and his revelations of huge interest. Arthur Goddard returns to Solihull
In May 2009, the first interviews with Arthur to be published in the UK appeared in Full Grille, the newsletter of the Land Rover Register 1948-1953, and the club later joined forces with the Land Rover Series One Club and JLR to arrange an event in May 2010 which saw Arthur, at the age of 89, returning to the UK as their Guest of Honour.
During his fortnight in the UK, JLR hosted Arthur on a two-day visit to the factory at Lode Lane in Solihull (his first visit there in 55 years), the British Motor Museum archives at Gaydon, and the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), which still uses the Belgian Pavé circuit which Arthur himself had designed to allow Rover to put many thousands of miles of wear and tear on a test vehicle during a matter of days. It is still in use today, and the story of how it came about is interesting in its own right.
“It was important to have our own facility to avoid going backwards and forwards to Belgium to do test work,” recalls Arthur. “It also makes it easier to ensure that you always have the same test conditions. When we bought MIRA they sent me to the Jabbeke Highway in Belgium. I’ve never been so frightened in my life, trying to take measurements and samples with trucks flying past. In the end we found a section of pavé alongside a wharf where there wasn’t so much traffic, and we measured that so that we could recreate it at MIRA.”
During his UK tour in 2010, Arthur also visited many of the sites used by Rover in the late 1940s to demonstrate and photograph their new vehicle, including Packington Park. Some of the publicity photographs taken back in the day were recreated using restored early vehicles, and they all show just how much Arthur was enjoying himself. And he was reunited with colleague Spen King, who had led the development of the first Range Rover in the mid-1960s. Graeme Aldous was on-hand throughout Arthur’s visit, filming it for posterity, and later produced an excellent film entitled Stop Gap, which is well worth watching.
Arthur’s visit to the UK generated a great deal of interest, and he was interviewed by several classic car and Land Rover magazines, and JLR themselves were extremely interested in the discovery of one of their most important engineers. Various JLR employees and ex-employees including Geof Miller and Roger Crathorne collaborated with Michael Bishop on further research, and in 2011 Michael published his fascinating book, They found our Engineer: the story of arthur goddard. Where it all began
Arthur Goddard was born in 1921 in Belfast where his father, a career soldier, was stationed at the time. The family later moved to Bamborough on the Wirral, and Arthur subsequently completed a Mechanical Engineering Certificate at college in Liverpool. During the Second World War he was employed by Alvis, working in their aero-engine research laboratory where he was involved in testing all kinds of wartime aircraft engines, including engines captured from the Axis forces.
LRM’S editor, Patrick Cruywagen, interviewed Arthur in late 2015 at his home in Brisbane, and asked him how he had come to work at the Rover Company.
“I never had control of my own life. Things just always seemed to happen to me and fall into place. Towards the end of the war the Department of Labour sent me to Rover for an interview as they had enquired about my work on the RollsRoyce Merlin aircraft engine. At the time Rover used an eight-cylinder version of it and they would just chop a piece off but use the same pistons, rings and big-end bearings. They had a problem, though. Rover’s head of engines, Jack Swaine, had recently broken his legs in a motorcycle accident
“I never had control of my own life. Things just seemed to happen to me and fall into place”
and they needed a replacement. I remember saying to Technical Director Maurice Wilks at the time that I didn’t know much about motor cars, to which he replied not to worry as they knew everything there was to know about them. That was the start of my Land Rover story”.
Rover’s interest in the Merlin was as a result of their involvement in the Meteor engine programme, based on the Merlin, for use in the British Army’s tanks. Rover had taken over the Meteor in January 1944 and in 1946 the British Government made Rover responsible for research and development of large military engines. In this role, Rover continued the development and production of the Meteor and its various derivatives until 1964, with the company finally producing some 9000 engines. The Meteor was to become perhaps the most successful British tank engine and changed the way tanks were designed, leading to the Universal Tank Concept and, ultimately, the very successful Centurion main battle tank.
“Maurice also mentioned that they had trouble with their four-cylinder engine”, Arthur remembers. “It had very severe chain thrash at about 3500 rpm. It was a tiny little engine compared to what I was used to working on and I had never heard of chain thrash before. I was used to engines with gears and not ones with a piece of what looks like a bicycle chain around it. It was no surprise that it had vibration and noise problems. I was able to solve the issue by developing a spring tensioner that actually worked. Whilst at Rover I became Maurice Wilks’ bosom pal, sorting out all the problems. I soon became chief development engineer of Land Rover; it all moved along rather quickly”.
Building an icon
As every Land Rover enthusiast knows, the genesis of the Land Rover began when Maurice Wilks was contemplating a replacement for a wartime Jeep that he had acquired for use on his farm on Anglesey. Maurice had sketched the outline of what would eventually become the Land Rover in the sand at Red Wharf Bay, and the company rapidly created the Jeepderived Centre Steer prototype, the steering wheel being placed in the middle of the car with the underlying logic being that the vehicle would be suitable for both home and left-hand drive export markets, although the idea was soon dropped. One enduring legacy resulted, though: Red Wharf Bay remains a place of pilgrimage for Land Rover enthusiasts and JLR used the beach in 2015, when six Land Rovers created the world’s largest sand drawing, dragging agricultural harrows for a total of 2.82 miles in one continuous line that created the distinctive outline of a Defender.
“Maurice had swapped a Bren Gun Carrier for his neighbour’s Jeep,” recalls Arthur, “and that was the one that I got hold of. It was not so much a case of copying things; more a case of not starting from scratch. For example, we would take a look and see where they had put their engine mountings. It might have taken them six months to sort it out while I would know where to put the mountings straight away by looking at the Willys Jeep. You could see all the things that were bad on the Jeep, and I managed to avoid them on the Land Rover. The Jeeps were rust-buckets while as you know Land Rovers just seem to last forever. We decided to use Birmabright alloy for the panels and it was nothing to do with recycling old aircraft. I also decided that we needed four gears instead of the three found on the Willys. The fact that I already had a four-speed box and did not have a three-speed one probably had something to do with this decision. The paint we used was also a standard Rover colour and not surplus wartime stocks that were lying around. We already had the paint in the spray guns – why would we go out and get something else?”
In his early interviews with Alex Massey, Arthur recalled that “the Centre Steer was the funniest thing to drive as the project was being done so quickly that it was initially assembled with one steering lever the wrong way round, so it steered left when turning right and vice versa.”
On the thorny subject of how many Centre Steer prototypes were made, though, Arthur cannot remember whether it was one, or perhaps two or three. He recalls that “the bodywork
“You could see all the things that were bad on the Jeep, and I managed to avoid them on the Land Rover”
wasn’t quite wide enough to seat three people with the drive layout in the middle” and, as to its (or their) fate, he thinks they were broken up but he cannot say for sure. Some myths are obviously pre-destined to endure! Arthur does have some very clear opinions on the Centre Steer, though.
“Much has been written about the Centre Steer over the years. Anyone that drove it surely must have known straight away that it just was not right? The reason the Centre Steer concept came about is that at the time we were only just thinking about supplying cars to Europe. Rover only made right-hand drive vehicles for England while someone else made left-hand drive vehicles for Europe. So due to the shortage of steel and the need to export our cars, we were forced to look at left-hand drive vehicles. One of the thoughts was that if you don’t want to make a left-hand drive and a right-hand drive then why don’t you put it in the middle? It was just a joke really. I know much has been written about it, but it probably lasted about 20 minutes at a senior management meeting where I delivered a summary on it. My conclusion was that it was absolutely useless and not worth carrying on with. The other thing is that it created the most unsatisfactory driving position. There was no way you could get at the controls and be comfortable at the same time.”
Taking the world by storm
The question as to whether the Land Rover was really seen as an interim or ‘stop-gap’ vehicle, or whether the company was already gearing up for production at scale fairly early in the development programme, is also one that has troubled historians. Recent research by Mike Bishop, who has examined many of the early engineering drawings and paid particular attention to the dates of these drawings, has led him to believe that Rover’s thinking must have evolved pretty rapidly into believing they would move to full-scale production very quickly. But it was perhaps the reaction to the prototypes at the Amsterdam Motor Show in March 1948 that finally proved the new Land Rover was about to take the world by storm. Arthur takes up the story:
“It was at the Amsterdam Motor Show when someone came up to me and said that he was interested in buying several hundred Land Rovers. The most we could’ve sold him at the time was three! I knew then that we were on to something special. There was also massive interest from the military. As you know they would buy thousands of the things. In fact, we got an order from the British Army for 1000. Nobody was more surprised than me.
“I was the only one there who knew anything about them. We also had Jonny Cullen there – he was my right-hand man who had taken on all the driving and testing duties. The sales chaps were not engineers. They had not been given any briefing and so I spent most of the time briefing them. You need to remember that the military people that came around to our stand were vehicle people and knew what they were talking about. It was hard to believe really. You are always suspicious when things look a whole lot better than they should. You start to think, is everything going to blow up in your face? As a matter of fact it did as we now had to produce vehicles to meet these orders!”
After the Amsterdam show, things began to move very quickly, and production ramped-up at a rate of knots, undoubtedly helped by the fact that the design had been created such that it did not require expensive tooling. Land Rover’s prototype at the Amsterdam Motor Show proved highly successful
“The Willys Jeep required a vast pressing machine,” says Arthur. “This would’ve cost us £150,000 to buy and two years to make. Also there was not a lot of time for testing. The only road testing I did was driving to and from work. In the end, the chassis came out a lot stiffer than we expected, twice as stiff as that of the Willys. This might have caused other problems but fortunately for us it did not. You never want to be an engineer unless you are lucky.
“I also had a deal with Maurice Wilks , who said that I could take anyone that I wanted from the car department. So I could take transmission, engine, production and body guys. In the end it was a fun time and everybody enjoyed what he or she were doing. I remember there was a round of applause when things went right and you pressed the button and get this feeling of pride.”
Arthur was to remain with Rover until 1957, almost to the end of Series I production, and therefore oversaw the development of the vehicle beyond its initial 80-inch incarnation, and when he departed the vehicle’s successor, the Series II, was ready to be launched. Regarding the 86in and the 107in, Arthur feels “it was money for jam. It was 90 per cent the same car!” He also feels that with hindsight he would have started with the longer-wheelbase 86-inch.
“Originally, on the short-wheelbase I had used the car information for spacing the passengers, but of course soldiers carry loads of kit and need additional space to compensate for this. The 86in had much more room. The body space had increased twice as much as the axle space because I had increased the overhang as well.”
Royal approval
He was also responsible for creating the Royal Review 86in, which was delivered to HM The Queen in Edinburgh and subsequently used during her six-month Commonwealth Tour, just after her 1953 Coronation.
“We had a great deal of difficulty in getting it approved. They initially went to Tickfords, who sent the drawings to me for approval. What an awful job they did! We came up with something a little different and it had a rail for Her Majesty to sit on but it still made it look as if she was standing. We had to get the height just right and she also had a rail to hold on to. Our version cost about a third of the Tickford option. I then sent the plans for this revised version to her minders for her to see. I must have also taken about four or
five trips to Buckingham Palace. Eventually I sent them photographs of the final version and the Queen fell in love with it as soon as she saw it.
“The instruction then came from her to build one, which we did right away. We arrived at Edinburgh Castle during the annual Edinburgh Tattoo to deliver the Royal 86in at 8am. Staff instructed us to get it parked on the lawn. Suddenly these big French doors opened up and out came the Queen, followed by Prince Philip. ‘Oh, so you are the Arthur Goddard. We loved the pictures and what you have done,’ said Philip, while chomping on a piece of toast. I think that she was very pleased to have somebody that was doing something especially for her. I said that we would supply the 42 vehicles they needed, free of charge. In the end all the countries that she visited wanted them so we could sell them for about three times what they cost to produce.”
Life after Land Rover
In 1957, Arthur left Rover to join Lucas Girling, initially as Technical Director for Girling Brakes, and he played a leading role in the development of the company’s disc brake system and its widespread adoption in ordinary cars. He moved to Australia in 1970 as Managing Director of Automotive and Girling, their Australian subsidiary that made brake components for Australian vehicle manufacturers. Today, well into his nineties, he still works as Chief Engineer in the family’s Brisbane-based trailer firm.
Looking back on his 13 years at Rover, most of which was spent on the Land Rover programme, Arthur is justifiably proud of what he and his team achieved.
“It was a completely unique thing. Nobody had built such a vehicle before. It was originally designed for agricultural and military purposes, but then it accidently picked up a whole leisure market in the process. An incredible story really. We had no idea back then what we’d started.
“When I visited the factory and Packington Park, 62 years after the Amsterdam Motor Show, it was a nostalgic moment. It made me realise how lucky I was to have had the opportunity to do what I did. Plus I had loads of fun along the way. Success is a very satisfactory thing, especially when you are one up on the world and not just competing against someone down the road. It took 20 years before anyone launched anything similar to compete with it. The steel boxes they used are nowhere near as good as the aluminium ones. People might laugh at old Land Rovers but they will still be there when everything else has fallen to bits”.
Arthur came back to the UK again in 2015 as JLR’S guest, and was reunited with the renowned Huey, the first production Land Rover dating from 1948, at the Goodwood Revival. JLR had decided to commemorate the end of Defender production, which was originally scheduled for the end of that year but was extended due to demand to early in 2016, with a parade of more than 50 Land Rover vehicles dating from 1948 to 1966. Arthur was proud to be in the vehicle that led the parade which was, of course, Huey.
During his visit, Arthur also inspected the two-millionth Defender during his tour of the Solihull production line and enjoyed a short drive along the road originally used to test the dynamics of the first Land Rovers. JLR were happy to feature him in a press release just ahead of the auction of the vehicle at Bonhams in London in December, where it raised £400,000, all of which was donated to Land Rover’s humanitarian and conservation partners – the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Born Free Foundation.
Arthur commented at the time: “You’ve got to be pleased with the Defender of today. It’s hardly changed since day one with its big fancy chassis and simple body shape. And it still keeps out the wind and rain!”
It will be interesting to hear what Arthur makes of the new Defender, which we should see later this year.
“People might laugh at old Land Rovers but they will still be there when everything else has fallen to bits”