By the time the Defender was launched in 1983 Rover had made 1.4 million Land Rovers and the Range Rover had been in production for thirteen years; not bad for a model that had been planed mainly as a post war stopgap to be made whilst rationing was still in force. However in 1983 that stop gap model became a marque in it's own right and traditional Land Rovers were christened Land Rover Defenders and fitted with coil spring suspension similar to that used by it's more expensive cousin.