Land Rover has commuted the death-sentence imposed on its original and much-loved classic Defender model and is to keep the vehicle alive by building it abroad, the company said today.

The U-turn comes just over a year after the British 4X4 firm announced that the original Defender - having reached its pensionable age of 65 – was to cease production by December this year.

This is to make way for an all-new hi-tech 21st century family of Defenders now in the pipeline. But following that revelation in October 2013 the clamour from fans for the original vehicle - a favourite with the Queen and many UK customers - has persuaded Land Rover bosses to have a re-think.

Special editions: Land Rover launched a year of celebrations with three run-out special limited edition versions of the Defender - called Heritage, Adventure and Autobiography

The potential for selling the more rufty-tufty original model in emerging markets in Asia and Africa also appeals to the firm. Although production of the old Defender will cease in the UK, it is now set to be re-born and built abroad outside the EU.

A Land Rover spokesman said: ‘Land Rover is investigating the possibility of maintaining production of the current Defender at an overseas production facility, after the close of UK manufacturing. Any continuation would see low volume production maintained for sale outside the EU.’

The firm has a manufacturing facility in India and has recently expanded into China. The production line could be sent abroad in container lorries to be re-assembled.

UK buyers might have to bring the Defender in as personal imports. The announcement came as the firm launched a year of celebrations with three run-out special limited edition versions of the Defender - called Heritage, Adventure and Autobiography - priced from ££27,800 to £61,845.

Departure: The production line could be sent abroad in container lorries to be re-assembled. (Pictured: Defender Autobiography)

New horizons: UK buyers might have to bring the Defender in as personal imports (Pictured: Defender Adventure)

It also created the largest sand drawing ever produced in the UK of a Defender measuring 0.62 miles across. It was drawn by a fleet of six Land Rovers on the same beach of Red Wharf Bay in Anglesey, Wales, where in 1947 Rover engineering director Maurice Wilks sketched out in the sand the shape of their original 4X4 to his brother Spencer, the firm’s managing director.

The last of the current Land Rover Defenders will roll-off the production lines of Jaguar Land Rover’s Solihull factory in the West Midlands in December 2015. The Defender is the name given in more recent years to the original Land Rover which was born in 1948.

The popular 4x4 vehicle, which is exported all around the world, represents the continuation of the very first Land Rover which came on to the scene in April 1948 and was modelled on the war-time jeeps. It featured in the last James Bond movie, Skyfall, and the Angelina Jolie film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

The Defender name itself can be traced back to 1990. It was created to avoid confusion with a new Land Rover launched the previous year called Discovery. At the Frankfurt Motor Show two years ago parent company Jaguar Land Rover unveiled a macho, testosterone-fuelled open-topped off-roader - codenamed DS100 Sport - designed to be as useful off-road as the trusty original.

It is likely to be one of a small family of Defenders. It could even be built at their Indian factory in Puna – whether in knock-down form from kits supplied in Britain, or more radically, in India alone. Jaguar Land Rover announced in October 2013:‘Production of Defender in its current format will stop at the end of 2015.’

Special editon: Defender Heritage

The Land Rover’s history

The original Land Rover started life as a squiggle in the sand when, shortly after the Second World War, Rover director Maurice Wilks sketched out on a beach near his holiday cottage in Anglesey the vehicle he needed to replace the American army surplus Jeep he used while there and on the family’s main home and farm in Warwickshire.

It went into production a year later in 1948 as a £450 agricultural aid for farmers, after being launched at that year’s Amsterdam Motor Show as the world’s first mass-produced civilian 4X4.

It has been with us ever since. With post-war rationing and steel in short supply but masses of aluminium around, the vehicle was initially made with the lightweight metal. The original sage-green paint was acquired from a fighter plane factory.

The first pilot pre-production model called ‘Huey’ after its registration number HUE 166, is fully working and on display at the Heritage Motor Museum in Gaydon, Warwickshire.

Astonishingly, some three-quarters of the 2 million Defenders ever built since launch are still in regular use.

Land Rover holds a Royal Warrant, as supplier to the Royal household. The relationship with Land Rover goes back to 1948 when King George VI viewed the original Land Rover.

The Queen, who is regularly photographed at the wheel, took delivery of her first one shortly after coming to the throne in 1952 and has used Land Rovers ever since.

The Queen used a specially adapted one for her first world tour in 1953, Winston Churchill was given one as an 80th birthday present at his home in Chartwell, while another was used for Pope John Paul II’s tour of England in 1982.