Claim: Land Rover makes the Defender car.

Land Rover is a car brand that specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles , owned by British multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover , which has been owned by India 's Tata Motors since 2008 . The Land Rover is regarded as a British icon , and was granted a Royal Warrant by King George VI in 1951 .   The Land Rover name was originally used by the Rover Company for the Land Rover Series , launched in 1948 . It developed into a brand encompassing a range of four-wheel-drive models , including the Defender , Discovery , Freelander , Range Rover , Range Rover Sport , and Range Rover Evoque . Land Rovers are currently assembled in the company 's Halewood and Solihull plants , with research and development taking place at the Gaydon and Whitley engineering centres . Land Rover sold 194,000 vehicles worldwide in 2009 .   In September 2013 , Jaguar Land Rover announced plans to open a # 100 million -LRB- US$ 160 million -RRB- research and development centre in the University of Warwick , Coventry to create a next generation of vehicle technologies . The carmaker said around 1,000 academics and engineers would work there and that construction would start in 2014 .