GETTING your hands on a 50-year-old Land Rover in full working order is a dream come true for many an enthusiast but when the vehicle was once owned by one of the men who invented it the experience is priceless.

With sales on a surge and billions of pounds invested the famous 4x4 brand is riding the crest of a wave and with its 70 birthday looming it is bringing its heritage alive.

On an off-road course less than 10 miles from the factory where the original Land Rover rolled off the line in 1947 the company is showing off some of the vehicles that made it great - and they are for everyone to drive.

Like sister brand Jaguar, Land Rover is moving on to the former Lucas test track at Fen End in Warwickshire to celebrate its history.

To launch the experience Land Rover brought together a mixture of some of its most historic models including the Series ll Land Rover bought by Spencer Wilks on his retirement in 1967.

It was Wilks, with his brother Maurice, who famously sketched out the design for the original Land Rover in the sand on a beach at Anglesey in 1946.

Now the Land Rover driven by Wilks in the 1960s can be put through its paces on and off the road where, like its Series l predecessor it demonstrated all the qualities that have made Land Rovers go-anywhere legends across the world.

The Series l version was a so-called ‘Ring Pull' model and built in 1949. Fitted with Rover's Freewheel technology, four wheel drive was engaged by pulling a ring in the floor of the vehicle - a device which could be used either in high or low gear ratios and which gave the vehicle such incredible performance in the harshest of conditions.

Other models from the past included a 101 Forward Control vehicle built for the military in 1978 and powered by a 3.5-litre V8 engine, one of the first automatic Range Rovers and a Discovery 3 in the bright orange livery of the G4 Challenge extreme outdoor competition Land Rover ran from 2003 to 2009.

The experience sessions cost from £85 up to £250 and are a fascinating walk not only through Land Rover design - which in the case of the current Defender has changed little from the original - but also through the engineering developments, culminating in the advanced Terrain Response technology of today where electronics make off-roading possible at the turn of a switch.

The Land Rover Heritage experiences can also be combined with drives in some of the famous Jaguars from the company's newly-acquired fleet of historics which include track sessions in an XK150 and an E-type.