Ever the pragmatists, the most senior Royals knew that when they finally shuffled off their mortal coils, the funeral processions would be watched by millions around the globe.

Hence there was no mad scramble to find suitable final transport for Queen Elizabeth II. It was already built.

The highly modified long wheelbase, glass-canopied Jaguar hearse, in her favoured Royal Claret paintwork and bearing her royal cypher - King George slaying the dragon - in place of the customary Jag leaper, took almost a year to build by Wilcox, coachbuilders to royalty since 1948.

And it was important to be carried in a vehicle demonstrably British, as Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, previously so ordered when he requested that Land Rover built a long-wheelbase hearse for his funeral procession. In military green, of course.

Both the Queen and the Duke wholly supported the British car industry throughout their reign, attending factory openings and events, endorsing the product, and owning dozens of Land Rovers and Range Rovers at their various estates.

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The Queen's death comes after a major celebration of her reign in the guise of the Platinum Jubilee in June this year, in which British cars - in their eclectic, extraordinary design diversity - performed a starring role.

At that event, down The Mall toward Buckingham Palace rolled some of the most motley collections of British automobilia that has possibly ever been assembled outside an episode of Top Gear.

The vehicle assemblage ranged from the sublime - Rolls-Royces, Jaguars and Bentleys of various vintages - to the ridiculous, including JCB farming equipment, weird, ground-hugging Sinclair electric Zikes and three-wheeled Reliant Robins, all tooting their horns with fervour and festooned with Union Jacks.

The parade would not have been complete, of course, without that most British of vehicles: the humble Land Rover - in all its various manifestations, encapsulating more than 70 long years of service to the Empire - and the tiny, oh-so-clever Mini.

For a country which didn't invent the car - that honour, again, arguably belongs to the French (theoretically), or the Germans (in a practical sense) - the British have produced some of the world's most admired vehicle designs, from the Land Rover and Mini, to the svelte E-Type Jaguar and the James Bond-synonomous Aston Martin DB5.

Which begs the obvious question: why is it that the Brits have managed to produce car designs which have so well survived the test of time?

It was just over a year ago, at the height of the global pandemic, that a British-designed vehicle was again crowned World Design of the Year by a 93-strong international jury.

That much-coveted prize went to the new Land Rover Defender. It was the sixth time that Jaguar Land Rover - a brand now owned by a Mumbai-based conglomerate the Tata Group - had won the world's top car design prize.

Squint hard through the bottom of a half-full glass of Fuller's London Pride and the new Defender reveals some of the design cues of the old: the clamshell bonnet, the high sills, spare wheel clamped to the side-hinged tailgate and the unusual vertical surfaces.

But this new Land Rover Defender has headed far more upmarket, leaving the four-wheeled toolkit of yesteryear far behind.

Consider, though, the enormous challenge that was presented to Land Rover in designing a new Defender for the 21st century.

The boxy Land Rover is one of the world's most recognisable vehicles.

Give a young child a crayon to draw a 4WD vehicle and the squared-off silhouette is almost certain to somewhat resemble that of the Land Rover, which can trace its lineage back to 1947. It's the second oldest continuously produced 4WD in the world after the Jeep.

For a vehicle which has been taken to war and kept the peace across the world, ventured into inhospitable jungles and untracked deserts, the Land Rover's durability and simplicity have always been its greatest virtues.

It has been exported all over the globe, often in Completely Knocked Down (CKD) kit form and capable of being built from its bare bones box-section chassis with only a basic set of Imperial spanners.

Although Toyota's publicists like to make claim that its LandCruiser was the 4WD which was the workhorse of the massive Snowy Mountains hydro scheme, in truth that honour belonged to the Land Rover.

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The LR legend began with the Series I, then continued on with the Series II after 1958. By 1976, one million had been produced. It later became badged as the Defender so as to differentiate it from the Discovery.

LR diehards lament that the most utilitarian of vehicles has abandoned its roots in the 21^st century.

And they are right. But the truth of it is that it had to, by necessity: the old Land Rover could no longer satisfy ever more stringent crash safety and emission regulations in developed markets.

The replacement Defender exudes the same air of durability but is far more sophisticated, $80,000 and above in pricing, with a raft of classy, beautifully designed accessories from heavy duty roof racks to fold-down ladders and side boxes, bullbars and even rooftop tents; everything the modern Bear Grylls wannabe adventurer needs to go off-road (or not) in consummate style.

While the Italians have always had the last word in vehicle style, the Brits - in their own special way - have never been far behind.

And if there's one one British style icon which stands apart - and has remained so for more than 60 years - it is the Jaguar E-Type sports car.

Flashback to the Geneva Motor Show in 1961 and the crowds literally swooned when the E-Type was first shown to the public.

Then the clamour for ownership began almost immediately, not just in the UK, but in Europe and the US where all the movers and shakers of the swinging 60s rushed to be the first seen in the swoopy British sports car.

Dubbed the "affordable supercar", early owners included Beatle George Harrison, singer Frank Sinatra, and film stars Tony Curtis, Steve McQueen and the sultry Brigitte Bardot.

The price was very sharp at the time: just over 2000 UK pounds. Nothing could match it for price and performance.

The E-type stayed in production, with few visual modifications because the purity of the shape made a restyle superfluous, for 13 long years.

Should you wish to revisit those salad days, Jaguar still produces the E-type today in the form of the E-type Reborn: a replica from the company's Classic Works division, using a donor car restored so as to be described as "flawlessly produced according to its original 1960s factory specification".

Lucas, the so-called "Prince of Darkness" which provided the dodgy original electrics, is gone and replaced by more modern componentry. A stainless steel exhaust, alloy radiator and lip seal "create a modern aesthetic, without compromising on heritage".

Such is the unabashed love of design originality, while the Mini of today has become German (BMW) owned and physically much bigger, a company called David Brown Automotive still produces the original : the Mini Remastered.

The company, it says, "worked meticulously to remaster the vision to create a contemporary design classic". The handbuilt Remastered is painstakingly put together with much-desired modern touches such as LED taillights and central touchscreen.

However, where the original Mini cost just under 500 pounds, the Remastered costs the best part of 75,000. And yet the order list stretches on and on.

Very few could argue of the Mini's prominent place in automotive history. It was to become the best-selling car in British history and stay in production for 40 years.

Back in 1956, engineer Alex Moulton and designer Alec Issigonis - who was knighted for his contribution in 1969 - received a brief from Sir Leonard Lord, the head of the British Motor Corporation - a merged company of Austin and Morris - to design three new cars.

The brief for the smallest was simple: four wheels, four seats four gears and to save cost, it had to use the company's A-type engine from the Morris Minor. And design and production had to happen in a hurry because fuel rationing was introduced as a result of the Suez Crisis.

As Moulton recalled: "Back in the 50s we had no idea we were making history".

"In those years ... there was a wonderful sense of design freedom and innovation; we were rid of austerity and hell-bent on having a go. The Mini was a fitting result."

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