Land Rover Legends
John Hall had one of the toughest challenges ever faced by a Land Rover engineer when he led the team responsible for developing the second-generation Range Rover
This month the spotlight is on John Hall, who was responsible for developing the second-gen Range Rover
ON December 12, 2001, the last second-generation Range Rover rolled off the production line at Solihull, driven by John Hall with Spen King as his passenger. Seven years earlier, in August 1994, John had seen the culmination of his role as Project Director draw to a successful conclusion with the launch of ‘his’ Range Rover. And today John is once again sitting in that last-off-line vehicle, which is now part of the Dunsfold Collection, and he is clearly delighted to be reunited with it.
“It was a daunting challenge but one that I was truly pleased to be asked to do,” says John. “It was undoubtedly the biggest project I, and indeed Land Rover, had undertaken up to that point. The original Range Rover was very much designed as a dual-purpose vehicle that could be used offroad but also provide good on-road performance. As the car evolved, more and more buyers were using it as an alternative to a luxury saloon, and rarely if ever venturing off-road. Comfort and on-road performance, and high levels of equipment, were therefore critical to the design of the new Range Rover. In effect we had to look at it as a luxury car, but it still needed to have the rugged off-road capability that characterised the Land Rover brand. The BMW 735 was used as the benchmark – which was very useful as things turned out six years later!”
The second-generation Range Rover may have only been in production for just over seven years, but it certainly took a long time to arrive. It was first considered as early as 1985, when Land Rover was going through a major restructuring with the aim of returning the business to profitability following the virtual collapse of its traditional utility vehicle markets in Africa. Part of the cost-cutting considerations had been to look at whether future vehicles might share a common platform, and Project Inca was the investigation into the new Range Rover that would sit on this common platform. A number of design drawings for the new vehicle were created but the company’s priorities soon shifted to Project Jay, which was eventually launched in 1989 as the Discovery, and the new Range Rover took a back seat.
Once Jay was moving towards production, the focus again switched to the replacement for the Range Rover. In 1988, Land Rover’s MD Tony Gilroy brought his old colleague John Hall across from the Freight Rover commercial vehicles business to become head of the Advanced Engineering team with responsibility for styling and forward engineering.
“Initially, I spent time reviewing the work that had been done under the Inca project, which predominantly focused on suspension and body system alternatives, and also drew up the overall programme for the replacement of the Range Rover,” recalls John. “Inca was later formally abandoned,
“We had to look at it as a luxury car but still have the rugged off-road capability that characterised the Land Rover”
and we then initiated Project Discovery to look at the new Range Rover, although once the Discovery name had been chosen as the brand name for the new Jay vehicle, we had to change the project name.
“During 1988 we put forward about nine different quarterscale design proposals, ranging from pretty conservative designs that were very similar to the original Range Rover, through to some that were really quite radical. Towards the end of the year these had been whittled down to three that were submitted to the board for review, two by our in-house team under George Thomson, and one from the Italian styling house Bertone after reviews with other top Italian design houses. It was Tony Gilroy who insisted that Bertone should be asked to prepare a design as well, and at the time the team were pretty irritated by this, but with hindsight it was Tony’s way of carrying out a kind of sanity check on the work we’d done. In the end we were all delighted when it was one of George’s designs that was selected to be developed further.
“At the same time, we were finalising our proposals regarding engines. It was never in doubt that the new Range Rover would have a V8. This was one of the most important and defining characteristics of the original vehicle, and we decided that we could further develop the Buick-derived engine to 4.6 litres in conjunction with other significant upgrades, and that would do the job. Deciding which diesel engine to use was more complicated, and we evaluated quite a few before settling on BMW’S M51 six-cylinder 2.5.
“We’d also concluded that the new vehicle would have a longer wheelbase at 108 inches and retain the strong, separate chassis but of a much more sophisticated box section design rather than the traditional girder section. The 108 had been used as the basis for the long-wheelbase LSE version of the original Range Rover, although simply lengthening the chassis made the LSE a rather unattractive vehicle in my view, particularly from the interior package. We also thought about monocoque construction, but at that time we simply didn’t have the capability at Land Rover to go down that route. It was decided early on that we would go for air suspension with beam axles in conjunction with sophisticated location – panhard rod and taperlight locating arms at the rear. You could always hear a lot going on underneath when you drove a coil-sprung Range Rover!
“Things then got delayed while the Rover car and the Land Rover engineering teams were combined into a single group, and we didn’t really begin again on the new Range Rover project until late 1989 or early 1990. I was appointed Project Director and asked to assemble a team to work on the new vehicle, which was now known as Project Pegasus. We were located at the Lode Lane site in part of a building known as Block 38A.”
That rather bland building number would later become immortalised when the name Pegasus was dropped after it was leaked to the media, and the programme was rechristened Project 38A. Since then, the second-generation Range Rover has always been known as the P38A or the 38A.
John graduated from Liverpool University with a First Class Honours degree in Mechanical Engineering, part of which involved him spending a year on the shop floor with Leyland Vehicles who had sponsored him in his studies. In 1969 he joined Leyland full-time as a student apprentice and spent 12 years there, mostly in truck planning roles. In 1981 he joined Freight Rover with Tony Gilroy and latterly George Simpson, rising to become Director of Product Planning and Projects. He had enjoyed an impressive and successful career but it was a daunting task to design a successor to the first ‘Spen King’ Range Rover which by then was already an icon, hugely desirable and very fashionable. Replacing it was not a task to be undertaken lightly.
“I thought it was important to retain aspects of the original Range Rover’s DNA and ensure that its successor looked like a Range Rover, albeit a new, modern, and highly-specified one,” recalls John. “That’s why we retained some of the very important design cues from the first generation vehicle, such as the castellated bonnet corners, the floating roof and selected aluminium panels. In fact, we commissioned Bertone to carry out an assessment and critique of Spen King’s original Range
“It was a daunting task to design a successor to the first ‘Spen King’ Range Rover, which was already an icon”
Rover design to identify the key design proportions such as the relationship between the glass and the bodywork and other defining characteristics, which we then crystallised into the final designs for the new Range Rover.
“We also sought to resolve some of the criticisms that had been levelled at the first-generation vehicle, such as the lack of rear legroom and insufficient elbow room for the driver, panel quality and gaps and perceived quality. The new vehicle would have to be longer and wider inside, and this meant it would also be heavier and would therefore require more powerful engines.
“We also had to take into account the North American market requirements. Range Rover had been launched there in 1987 and the vehicle was selling very well indeed, but we also needed to consider the requirements of our customers in the UK, continental Europe and the Middle East”.
Prototypes were being tested on the road by late 1991, often fitted with elaborate camouflage comprising bolt-on plastic panels and canvas covers that attempted to make them look like military trucks. The oldest surviving P38A prototype is today in the care of the Dunsfold Collection and still has its set of canvas covers. John was not a big fan of the attempts at disguise. “They often attracted more attention than when they weren’t disguised, and more importantly hindered vehicle attribute assessments such as refinement and wind noise,” he says. “The vehicles were less noticeable when we just painted them in a drab colour and registered them with plates that made them look older than they were. And we also made sure they looked rather tatty!
“There was one very amusing moment in Dubai, where we were testing some prototype vehicles. The Land Rover agent came to me and said that a local big-wig had been made aware of the vehicles and wanted a test drive. I tried to explain that they were prototypes and not available for the public to drive, but this fell on deaf ears. An appointment was made and at the allotted time half a dozen Land Cruisers turned up, most of which were filled with Uzi-touting bodyguards. The VIP told us he had just 20 minutes for this highly-unofficial test-drive, but three hours later he was still behind the wheel. Finally, he announced that he liked it and wanted it… immediately! I had to explain very politely that the vehicle was not for sale, but he placed an order for five or six vehicles to be delivered to Dubai and London anyway!”
The first production vehicles were built in early 1994 and the launch was the biggest and most expensive that Land Rover had ever staged, running in several phases from August that year until October. Land Rover had never arranged anything like it before in connection with the launch of a new vehicle, which is perhaps indicative of both the importance of the new vehicle and their desire to do all they could to make its debut a success.
The first phase of the launch campaign was the reveal to the world’s media, which was held at Cliveden, a stately home in Buckinghamshire, over several weeks from midAugust to mid-september. Journalists from country after country would arrive in their respective groups, get their first glimpse of the new Range Rover before the evening’s entertainment, and then drive a selection of vehicles the following day around a pre-determined road route. There was an off-road demonstration course but is was relatively undemanding: Land Rover already realised that the majority of the buyers for the new car would be comparing it with top-of-the-range saloons such as the Mercedes S- Class and the BMW 7 Series, and its genuine off-road capability was a reassuring fact rather than a daily necessity. Meanwhile, groups of three vehicles had been shipped to each of six destinations around the world: Botswana, the Cotswolds, Japan, Madrid, Tierra del Fuego, and Vermont.
This was followed by a sophisticated direct mail campaign to Range Rover owners and prospective customers, who received a series of packages through the post designed to look as though they had been posted from overseas: the first contained an autumn leaf from Vermont, the second a sea shell from Patagonia, and the third a chrysanthemum from Japan. A personal letter then arrived, with an invitation to attend a VIP reception at a local dealership. When existing and prospective customers arrived at their dealerships they
“Prototypes were fitted with elaborate camouflage comprising bolt- on plastic panels and canvas covers”
found live satellite links to what was known as ‘The 24Hour Event’, with broadcasts from celebrity drivers and Land Rover executives in their P38AS from the six locations around the world. John Hall was part of the team driving the three P38AS down to Tiera del Fuego, accompanied by Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut and the first woman to visit the Mir space station, and Robin KnoxJohnston, the first man to sail solo non-stop around the world. “Robin became a good friend,” John smiles. “We’ve had many red wine and curry evenings over the years and a few uncomfortable trips on his 32-foot Bermudan ketch, Suhaili, which was the boat he used for his round-theworld voyage. On one outing I rewired the engine bay in Falmouth Harbour!”
Finally, in early October the new Range Rover starred at the Paris Motor Show. The reaction from the press was almost universally positive. By 1994, the original Range Rover had been in production for 24 years and was a tough act to follow, but its successor was an impressive and capable vehicle both on and off the road, and it was still recognisably
“The new Range Rover starred at the Paris Motor Show. The reaction from the press was universally positive”
a Range Rover. There were some who criticised the styling for being too conservative, and some sections of the media compared it to a Metrocab taxi. But the Range Rover-buying public loved it, and that was what really mattered.
Land Rover’s concern that the new model and luxury car price positioning might not be received favourably by its traditional customers even extended to maintaining the old Range Rover Classic in production beyond the launch of its replacement. In the event, the P38A was embraced by those customers as well as by new buyers who would previously have bought luxury saloons, and production of the Range Rover Classic was ended shortly after the launch with a final flourish: the 25 vehicles that formed the 25th Anniversary Final Edition.
“Everything about the P38A was new,” says John. “There was no Land Rover style guide or set of established design rules, and we were pretty ground-breaking in many ways with things like electronic air suspension, axle location, the H-gate auto gearbox, integrated air-conditioning and, of course, the on-board electronics and the central computer, which we named the Body Electronic Control Module or BECM, as well as what was at that time an extremely sophisticated security system. These latter two proved to be troublesome even though we selected the same suppliers that Mercedes and BMW were using, but I think we were treated differently! On more than one occasion I would be woken in the early hours by a ringing telephone to hear director John Towers telling me that he was locked out of his immobilised Range Rover, and what was I doing about it!”
In fact, lock-outs were common as well as false warnings and drained batteries. The company was forced to buy back customer vehicles at an alarming rate. Ex-land Rover PR man and writer Mike Gould has suggested that at one point this was running at ten per cent in the UK. Quality control issues and a reputation for electrical gremlins rather tarnished the model over the ensuing years but were resolved after significant hard work by the vehicle engineering team.
BMW had acquired Rover and Land Rover in January 1994 but had no involvement with the P38A and merely approved it for production and launch, but it is no secret
that many in BMW viewed it unfavourably because of its dated V8, beam axles and separate chassis. Land Rover had intended that the model should remain in production for at least ten years but BMW, after considering the costs of various significant upgrades including building a test-bed for their V8 and V12 petrol engines and 3.0-litre diesel, as well as styling upgrades, concluded that the P38A had no long-term future and therefore initiated a programme to create its thirdgeneration replacement.
The P38A remained rather unloved for many years, eclipsed by both its predecessor and its successors. Even Land Rover themselves seemed to be trying to airbrush it out of their history, and it was notable that when they commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Range Rover in 2010 by making a film, they featured the first and third generations but not the P38A.
In recent years the world has come to see the P38A in a new light, though, and through a modern lens the styling looks restrained and classical, recognisably related to its predecessor, and has stood the test of time well. Enthusiasts have also come round after years of criticism, as evidenced by the number of features on the vehicle in the enthusiast press that have appeared over the past few years. Fixes have been found for many of the electronics issues, and readilyavailable diagnostic tools mean that maintenance is now within the capabilities of enthusiasts and model specialists. History will undoubtedly show that the P38A was an inspired and more than worthy successor to the original Range Rover. But by 1995 John Hall’s focus was shifting to a new challenge.
When BMW acquired Land Rover in 1994, work was already underway on Project Tempest, which was the programme that would eventually lead to the secondgeneration Discovery. BMW were concerned that the vehicle that Tempest would create would be little more than a facelift of the original Discovery, and there were strong voices in BMW that the vehicle needed to be more revolutionary and radical.
Project Tempest would be allowed to continue, but BMW convinced Land Rover that a second project should be created to run in parallel, with a brief to apply this radical thinking to design a vehicle that could, as BMW’S head of engineering Wolfgang Reitzle said, outsell the Jeep in its traditional markets in the US heartlands such as the Mid-west.
John Hall was appointed to lead what unsurprisingly became known as Project Heartland and, had things turned out differently, it would have been the vehicle created by the Heartland team that would have become the secondgeneration Discovery.
In many ways Heartland was another tough assignment. To succeed in the US the vehicle would have to be larger than the Tempest vehicle and need to have greater flexibility in terms of seating configuration. To sell well in the home market and in continental Europe, it would need to be smaller than the vehicle for the US market and have good fuel economy. Reconciling the two market requirements into a single vehicle would prove difficult, and Heartland ended up recommending two vehicles: a short-wheelbase version with five seats primarily for Europe, and a longer-wheelbase seven-seater aimed mainly at the US market. BMW gave them the codenames L35 and L36 respectively.
John recalls “There was also much debate about whether Heartland should be of monocoque construction which I was very keen on. But the conclusion that we needed two wheelbases meant that economics forced us to use a design based on a separate chassis.”
Of greater potential concern was that fact that BMW were developing their own vehicle with the US heartland market in mind and, although development of this was apparently stopped in favour of John’s programme, the BMW concept did not go away and the resulting X5 was eventually launched in 1999.
Despite the progress made and the ground-breaking and exciting nature of the emerging designs, the Heartland project was eventually overtaken by events. Firstly, BMW’S focus began to shift in the direction of the third-generation Range Rover to replace the P38A; secondly, the Freelander development programme was proving costly and, thirdly, the
“The P38A remained rather unloved for many years, eclipsed by both its predecessor and its successors”
Project Tempest vehicle known as L25 could be brought to market relatively quickly and cheaply. And indeed it was, becoming known as the Discovery 2.
John was promoted to Director, Technical Strategy in 1996 and the Heartland project was closed down in early 1997. In 1998 he became Director UK Brands, Product and Market Strategy and following the Ford acquisition of Land Rover he moved from BMW to Ford and was appointed Chief Programme Engineer, Range Rover where his focus was on the third-generation Range Rover (codenamed L30 by BMW and L322 by Ford, and launched in 2002) as well as the first Range Rover Sport (the L320, launched in 2004). In 2003 John was appointed Director Product Strategy with responsibility for both Jaguar and Land Rover within Ford, before leaving the company in 2005.
“BMW was a wonderful parent company and the BMW years were very exciting. They always encouraged petrol heads,” he says. “They had a well-defined process for designing new vehicles and we learned a great deal from them. They were, and still are, fundamentally a powertrain business and I think that’s why they halted the planned developments to the P38A and decided to invest in its replacement. It was simply too expensive to re-engineer the P38A to accept the BMW engines and associated transmissions.
“They did not spend enough time delving into the Rover cars business, though, and it was the deep-seated problems there that pulled the whole project down and led to us being christened The English Patient. They should have been more hands-on and involved,” says John. “And I think that led to the BMW board’s decision to dispose of both the Rover car and the Land Rover businesses. But I have very fond memories of working with BMW’S Wolfgang Reitzle, who was a very inspirational and visionary leader. And, of course, he ended up at Ford as boss of the Premier Automotive Group, so we were reacquainted there.
“Conversely, I did not enjoy the Ford years at all. There were endless teams from Dearborn who came at great expense to tell us what we needed to do to, and much of it seemed to centre on putting a Land Rover body on a Ford Explorer platform. I probably did not endear myself to the Ford executives when I told them rather bluntly what I thought of the Explorer!”
After leaving Land Rover, John spent 18 months acting as a consultant and adviser to Cranfield University high-tech start-up company Axon Automotive, eventually becoming non-executive Chairman, a position he held until 2013. The family connection with Land Rover continues to this day, though. John’s son, Simon, has worked at JLR for nine years and is currently a Senior Engineer covering wiper systems, fixed glazing and interior mirrors.
Today, John spends his time fettling his Lotus Elise which he uses for hill climbs at Shelsley Walsh, and he is also a very enthusiastic road and mountain cyclist, while skiing and snowboarding occupy the winter months. John is a keen golfer and is match secretary at a local golf club. Until very recently he drove a Range Rover, latterly an Evoque, and is rather taken with the new Velar. But in the meantime he has temporarily switched his allegiance to a 300 bhp Jaguar XF which he is about to replace with an F-pace. He has no desire to sample a Discovery Sport and thinks “the new Discovery rear end is singularly unattractive although it seems to be selling very well nevertheless!”