Spen King

No one, least of all King, expected Range Rover to be the enormous success it became. The vehicle's perfect balance of versatility and luxury finish ignited an astonishing demand for what ultimately became a British icon – a 4x4 that, in the words of Autocar magazine, "changed the way off-roaders are viewed, right across the world, and spawned dozens of imitations".

With its powerful V8 engine and four-wheel drive transmission, the Range Rover became the vehicle of choice for a wide range of users, from royalty (the Queen was often seen driving one at Windsor, Sandringham and Balmoral), rock stars (who would opt for the tinted windows), Sloane Ranger mothers (who clogged suburban school run routes in them and inspired the pejorative tag "Chelsea Tractors") and traffic police. When the Pope visited Britain in 1984, his Popemobile was based on a Range Rover, and it is the only vehicle to have featured in an exhibition at the Louvre in Paris as an example of perfection in industrial design.

The Range Rover's distinctive lines were a result of King's own hurried drawings. For months, he and his colleague Gordon Bashford had toiled on the mechanical layout and design of Land Rover's new model, and when they needed a body in order that prototypes could be tested, they simply drew their own.

So perfect were their shapes, planes and proportions that when the company's styling supremo David Bache came to create a body for series production, he merely had to tweak the edges, maintaining the essential inspirational shape.

Yet King insisted that the design he and Bashford came up with was always supposed to be a stopgap, and had occupied "0.1 per cent" of development time.

As head of new vehicle projects at Rover from 1959, King also oversaw the Rover 2000 and SD1 models. When Rover was swallowed by British Leyland, King was asked to run Triumph and oversaw the later stages of the development of the Triumph Stag, TR6 and TR7 sports cars. After the formation of Leyland Cars in 1975, he became director of design and oversaw the conception of the Metro and Maestro saloons.

King was later critical of British Leyland's neglect of quality and reliability, and "disrespect for the customer", a result, he believed, of the then BL boss Michael Edwardes being distracted by his constant battle with the unions.

Charles Spencer King was born on March 26 1925 at Shackleford, near Godalming, Surrey, the son of a solicitor. Educated at Haileybury, which he hated, he inherited a passion for engineering from his maternal uncles, Spencer and Maurice Wilks, who ran the Rover car firm. His career in automotive engineering began in 1942 when he became an apprentice at the Rolls-Royce works in Derby. As part of the war effort, he also helped build Spitfire engines.

In 1945 King moved to work for his uncles at Rover and helped to design the gas turbine car prototypes known as Jet1 and T3, and in 1952 set a land speed record of 152mph for such vehicles at the wheel of the Jet1. In 1959 he was appointed head of Rover's new vehicle projects.

It was his work on the original Range Rover, however, for which King will be best remembered. No other vehicle before had blended the Range Rover's all-round ability with such a sense of luxury, a combination that is as successful today as it was back in 1970.

Following British Leyland's takeover of Rover, King became chairman of BL Technology where he developed a new type of light and aerodynamic Energy Conservation Vehicle (ECV).

Although never intended to go into production, several features were taken from the ECV project, including construction and design techniques that appeared in Rover's popular K-series engines.

In 1990, three years after taking early retirement, King was honoured when the Rover group named a limited-edition Range Rover, the CSK, after him. Featuring Beluga black paintwork, chrome bumpers, alloy wheels, leather and walnut trim, only 200 were built, each with a numbered plaque and signed certificate.

King never intended the Range Rover to become a status symbol, and regretted the proliferation of 4x4s as general purpose vehicles "for the pompous and self-important driver". Latterly King himself drove a Mini Cooper "S" or a sporty VW Golf.

An accomplished downhill skier, King was a regular competitor on the slopes at Aspen, Colorado, and also designed boats that he raced successfully in the 1960s. In retirement he regularly sailed his 27ft Impala yacht in The Solent, and pursued his other hobbies of photography and listening to classical music.

Spen King died on June 26 from injuries sustained a fortnight earlier when his bicycle collided with a van. His wife Moyra predeceased him last year and their son and daughter survive him.