What 4x4s.org is
An independent, non-commercial reference on the Land Rover and the vehicles built on it and beside it — 465 named vehicles and 25 base models catalogued so far, with 139 manufacturers, coachbuilders and workshops, 6 histories of the marque in service, the marques themselves, 57 mapped expeditions, the equipment they carried, and the paint codes and chassis numbers a restorer needs. It is written and maintained by one enthusiast, not by a manufacturer, a club or a dealer, and it earns nothing from what it lists.
Scope
Vehicles built on the Land Rover chassis or by its licensees from 1948 to the last Solihull Defender of 2016: the Series I, II, IIA and III, the Forward Controls and the 101, the Ninety, One Ten and Defender, the Australian Perentie, the Spanish Santana line, the Range Rover Classic, P38 and L322 and the Discovery where they were converted for a working role. Named vehicles are individual types the registry can document — a fire appliance, an armoured car, an expedition truck; base models are the factory configurations they were built on. Vehicles the registry cannot yet identify with confidence are kept in a review list rather than published.
How a record is researched
Each record is written from primary and secondary sources and cites them: museum collections (the Dunsfold Collection, the Australian War Memorial, the REME Museum, the Army Museum Bandiana), manufacturer and operator archives, period sales brochures and workshop manuals, the factory chassis-number tables as the Series One Club and the Land Rover FAQ transcribe them, Grace's Guide and Companies House for the firms, marque references and club registers, and owners' photographs and captions. Every vehicle page ends with a Sources & evidence list giving each source and the date it was consulted — 2,017 citations across the registry. Figures the sources do not settle are written as estimates (a ~ before a production figure means one) or left blank; the registry does not fill a gap with a guess.
Review status
Every record carries a status and the date it last changed. Researched (559 of 593) means its facts carry citations; draft means a summary and some sources, with dates, engines or builders still to be confirmed. The status is printed at the foot of the page, and the summary of a draft says what is uncertain. Paint colours state whether a factory code is recorded and warn when a hex value is an estimate; chassis-number tables say which club or manual they are transcribed from.
Pictures
Three kinds, in this order of preference. An AI rendering impression — the registry's own 3D model of the vehicle painted into a working scene by an image model — is always labelled as an impression and never used as evidence. Otherwise a photograph the registry holds its own copy of under a free licence (public domain, Creative Commons, expired Crown copyright), credited in the caption with a link to its source; 794 such photographs so far. Where it has neither, a placeholder. Nothing is hot-linked from another site, and photographs that could only be linked are listed under Sources instead of shown.
Names and trademarks
Land Rover, Defender, Range Rover, Discovery, Santana and every other vehicle and company name on the site are used to identify the vehicles they refer to; the trademarks belong to their owners, and 4x4s.org has no connection with Jaguar Land Rover, Santana Motor, Otokar or any manufacturer, operator or museum it names. The browser game the registry links to, 4x4s.org, is a separate site of the same author that depicts no licensed vehicle.
Corrections and contributions
Every vehicle page has a Submit a correction button that opens a form already filled with the record's identity; the suggestion form takes vehicles the registry has missed. Photographs with a free licence, fleet lists, chassis numbers and period documents are the most useful evidence, and a correction with a source is acted on before one without. Corrections are reviewed by hand; the record's change date moves when it lands.
Reuse
The research text and the AI rendering impressions are the project's own work: quote or reuse them with a link to the page, and keep an impression labelled as one. The photographs are not the project's — each is shown under its own licence, named in its caption, and those terms apply. The chassis-number decoder and the paint and chassis tables may be linked freely; a club or restorer wanting the data itself should ask through the suggestion form.
Contact
Through the suggestion form, which reaches the author directly. Press and clubs: the same form, marked as such — a description, screenshots and the project's marks are supplied on request.
See also the FAQ and the glossary.