Range Rover Viola: the off-road GT that never was

Velar and Viola as they might have looked, at the top of their game

Launched in 1970, the original Range Rover proved an immediate success. At the time, it offered a spread of capabilities that no other manufacturer had imagined might hang together, much less see buyers forming a queue. Almost by accident, Land Rover had somehow achieved alchemy, turning a mud-plugging off-roader into a gleaming object of desire.

In part due to its lofty driving position, the Range Rover quickly became a status symbol from which owners could literally as well as metaphorically look down on lesser cars.

Sales success came not because of the genius of British Leyland product planners, but in spite of them. Having stumbled into phenomenal success with the Range Rover, the company went on to ignore it – building and selling the vehicle but not attempting to improve or burnish it in any meaningful way. The model received virtually no further development for the rest of the decade.

It took until 1981 for a five-door version to join the original three-door model, and another year for an automatic transmission to be offered alongside the manual gearbox.

We can only imagine what might have transpired had British Leyland decided to double down on the upmarket appeal of the original Range Rover in those early years. It might, for example, have created a coupé or GT edition – the most desirable body format of the era.

An elegant fastback roof could have emphasised the Range Rover's length

During development and field testing of prototype Range Rovers, the identity of the manufacturer had been kept a secret, using the name 'Velar' to deflect attention. A Velar car company was established, matching badges were affixed to the bodywork, and the prototypes were even registered as Velar products. The name was reportedly dreamed up as a combination of letters from Rover and Alvis – upmarket sister companies inside British Leyland at the time.

For our imaginary GT version of the Range Rover, we've repeated the exercise and come up with the name 'Viola' from the same selection of letters. It might have been a codename or product name for the GT edition that never was.

The coupé Range Rover Viola would certainly have cut a dash in 1970s Britain

The original Range Rover has often been praised for the practical beauty of its design. The legend is that engineers Spen King and Gordon Bashford achieved the iconic look virtually by accident, having fashioned simple panels to clothe a naked chassis. The less fanciful truth seems to be that their efforts were initially guided and subsequently tidied by Rover's styling studio, led by David Bache.

Range Rover underpinnings would have created a very versatile Grand Tourer

Whatever the true story, the Range Rover's upright design simply looks 'right', and is by no means ruined when an entirely different roof is grafted onto it.

For our imaginary Range Rover Viola, we have kept the Range Rover's iconic bodywork entirely unchanged below the shoulder, changing only the shape of the roof, upper tailgate and windows. We've also kept in mind practical constraints like the need to store the Range Rover's spare wheel upright, to one side of the boot.

We'd like to think that Bache, who oversaw the sleek fastback Rover SD1, would have approved.

Violas might have been offered with the option of a quad-lamp grille 

The unaltered nose of the Range Rover has presence aplenty, but an upmarket GT edition in the 1970s would most likely have benefited from a splash of chrome across its grille, or a quad-lamp upgrade in the options list.

The standard Range Rover tailgate could have been modified for GT service

At the back, our imagined Viola GT sticks closely to the format of the standard Range Rover, with a split tailgate. As with the standard car, the glazed upper section can be lifted on its own for rapid access to the boot, while the lower section can be folded for full access or to form an impromptu picnic bench.

Range Rover's trademark split tailgate would happily serve as a picnic bench

Following the launch of the five-door Range Rover in July 1981, the three- and five-door cars were offered alongside each other until the three-door was phased out in 1984. We've imagined what a five-door Viola might have looked like in the mid-1980s.

Our imagined Viola GT edition of the five-door Range Rover

While the switch to five doors seemed like a natural evolution for the real Range Rover, it tends to robs our GT version of its long and graceful look. There's a reason that even today, a true GT requires a three-door or two-door coupé format. Add too much practicality and what you end up with no longer looks like a GT.

The slope of the hatch is dictated by the need to squeeze in a spare wheel

Hidden hinges for the doors gave five-door Range Rovers a smoother look

In our imaginary world, the Viola always looks best in its original three-door guise. Such a shame that it never existed.

Sadly, zero Range Rover Violas were ever built in reality