Minneapolis Street Sighting: Land Rover Four Wheel Drive Station Wagon

I have a thing for SUVs-- not mainstream, cookie-cutter vehicles bought in droves by soccer moms either; when I mean SUVs, I mean vehicles that started the trend. Way before the rise of the Ford Explorer, Lincoln Navigator, Toyota Highlander, and the dozens of other so-called "sport utilities" whose only place in society is coddling the owner on a Starbucks run. there was a whole different class of vehicles that bore this designation. Proper utilities that served a function as being able to conquer damn near any no-road terrain; trucks like the original Jeep by Willys, and twenty years later, the original Ford Bronco. So where does the original Land Rover fit in? It was introduced in 1948, and the basic formula is still somewhat intact; the same utilitarian design lives on, even today, as the Land Rover Defender.















Like Jeep, Land Rover can boast that a vast majority of their product still exist, and is still on the road today; vehicles like the first few Series of Land Rover make that possible. Gone are all the electrical gremlins, and mechanical iffiness that plague the newer, "better" trucks, but the same go-anywhere spirit still applies--and those new trucks have this one to thank. Initially sold as a four-seat rugged go-anywhere vehicle, it was later joined by a four-door model; this basic truck later would evolve into the rig that purists--and enthusiasts-- know as the Defender 90 and Defender 110.
I'm horrible at distinguishing these trucks' year-to-year changes, and I'm probably wrong, but I was guess that this is a Series II, produced anywhere between 1961 and 1968 for US consumption: to the untrained eye, most people (including two who stopped and asked) would possibly confuse this for a Jeep, and even with all the similarities, I don't quite see how that is possible. What is possible, though, is to assume that this vehicle (unfortunately) never sees any of the terrain it was originally intended for. While I do respect that the owner keeps his or her truck clean, I would like to see one of these still being used as a a "mudplugger" as the British term is. To take an iconic four-wheel-drive and turn it into a city runabout would almost render this example a "Chelsea tractor." Or would that be "Minneapolis tractor"?
I quite like these, and I'm glad I shot this; there have been others that I've spotted, but to date, this red one is the cleanest one I've been able to shoot, blog or otherwise. I can only hope that despite clean appearances, the owner does use this old boy to its full potential; it's almost a shame not to.