With all the interest in the Range Rover to mark its 40th anniversary, it’s one of life’s ironies that the sad news of the death of Charles Spencer ‘Spen’ King was announced recently. Spen will always be remembered as the creator of the Range Rover yet his career was far more influential than just that, albeit iconic, design.
One only has to look at the collection here at Gaydon to see his hand in the motor industry over more than four decades of work. From the gas turbine prototypes in the early part of his time with the Rover Company, to the ECV3 energy efficient concept in his last years with BL, Spen’s great engineering skills were put to use in many British post-war models. Take a a walk around the museum and you will pass many of the designs which he influenced: the Stag, TR7, the P6, the SD1 and, of course, the clean lines of the first Range Rover. And there are others that didn’t quite make it into production, such as the pretty Rover/Alvis P6BS mid-engined sports car.
Spen visited Gaydon every so often and was always willing to give us some tips about the cars he had worked on; always insightful yet gracious too. With his death, Britain and the international motor industry has lost someone who can be rightfully called an engineer’s engineer.
