About
The Dunsfold Collection is the largest collection of Land Rovers in the world, gathered together at a purpose-built museum near the village of Dunsfold in Surrey, close to the site where many prototype and pre-production Land Rovers were historically tested. The collection numbers around 140 vehicles, tracing the model's history from the earliest post-war prototypes through the classic Series I, II and III Land Rovers to Range Rovers, Defenders and specialist military and expedition variants, making it an unrivalled physical record of one of Britain's most internationally recognised vehicle marques.
The museum building itself is a relatively recent addition to the Collection's long-running preservation effort, opening in June 2023 to provide a permanent, purpose-built home where up to forty vehicles can be displayed on rotation from the wider holdings in the Collection's care. Before the building opened, the Collection existed largely as a working store and restoration operation rather than a publicly visitable museum, and the new facility represents a significant step in making decades of accumulated vehicles, engineering history and institutional knowledge properly accessible to enthusiasts and the wider public.
Because the site continues to combine active vehicle storage, restoration work and a public museum function, access is managed carefully: the Collection holds public open days twice a year, for which tickets must be pre-booked online in advance, since no tickets are available at the gate and numbers are limited. Outside these open days, private tours can be arranged for groups of between ten and fifty visitors by prior arrangement, giving enthusiast clubs and specialist groups a route to visit at other times of year.
For Land Rover enthusiasts and anyone interested in British motor manufacturing history, the Dunsfold Collection offers something genuinely unmatched: not a handful of representative examples but a comprehensive fleet spanning the marque's entire history, maintained and interpreted by people with direct, long-standing expertise in the vehicles themselves.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Book open day tickets online well in advance - they are not sold at the gate and sell out quickly.
- Arrive by car, as the site is rural with only limited public transport nearby.
- Allow at least two hours to see the full range of vehicles on display.
- If you cannot get open day tickets, ask about arranging a private group tour instead.
- Bring cash or a card for the shop and refreshments, available on open days.
- Check the Collection's website close to your visit, as open day dates and details can change.
- Land Rover club members and enthusiasts should consider arranging a dedicated group tour for a more in-depth visit.
Highlights
The Full Land Rover Model History
The Collection's approximately 140 vehicles trace the Land Rover story from the earliest post-war prototypes, developed in the late 1940s as a stopgap agricultural and utility vehicle for the Rover Company, through the classic Series I, II and III models that established the marque's global reputation for rugged simplicity and durability.
This unbroken model-by-model sequence is the Collection's central achievement, allowing visitors to see the vehicle's genuine engineering evolution across more than seven decades rather than a handful of disconnected highlights.
Pre-Production and Prototype Vehicles
Among the Collection's most significant holdings are pre-production and prototype vehicles used in the development and testing of successive Land Rover models, many of them tested in the surrounding Surrey countryside close to the Collection's own site. These prototypes offer a rare window into the engineering development process behind a globally recognised vehicle, showing design decisions, modifications and dead ends that never reached full production but shaped the vehicles that eventually did reach customers worldwide.
Several one-off or experimental vehicles in the Collection exist nowhere else, making them irreplaceable primary evidence for historians of British vehicle engineering.
Military and Expedition Variants
The Collection includes military and expedition-specification Land Rovers reflecting the vehicle's extraordinary versatility and its deployment by armed forces and expedition teams across the globe, from British Army service to polar and desert expeditions that relied on the vehicle's reputation for reliability in extreme conditions.
These variants illustrate how deeply the Land Rover became embedded in institutions and undertakings far removed from its original agricultural purpose, reinforcing its status as a genuinely global vehicle rather than simply a British farm workhorse.
Range Rover and Defender Development
Later galleries cover the development of the Range Rover from its 1970 launch as a groundbreaking combination of off-road capability and comfort, through to the modern Defender name that succeeded the classic Land Rover shape, tracing how the marque diversified into distinct model lines serving different markets while retaining a shared engineering heritage.
This later material connects the Collection's historic vehicles to the modern products still recognisably descended from them on today's roads. Placing early and late examples side by side lets visitors trace exactly which design elements the marque kept and which it abandoned over seven decades.
Collections
The Dunsfold Collection holds around 140 Land Rovers, the largest such collection in the world, tracing the marque's history from post-war prototypes and the classic Series I, II and III models through to modern Range Rover and Defender development. Pre-production and prototype vehicles, many tested in the surrounding Surrey countryside, sit alongside military and expedition-specification variants illustrating the vehicle's global versatility beyond its original agricultural purpose.
Up to forty vehicles are displayed on rotation in the Collection's purpose-built museum building, opened in June 2023, with the wider holdings maintained through active restoration and engineering work by specialists with long-standing expertise in the vehicles.
The Land Rover Story
The full model history from post-war prototypes through Series I, II and III to modern Defender and Range Rover development.
Prototypes and Testing
Pre-production and development vehicles, many tested in the surrounding Surrey countryside near the Collection's site.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.