Cheese & Crackers, Salt & Pepper, Land Rovers and side stickers. Combos that just work. Land Rover stopped applying side decals that ran down the length of the body in 1997, when the 300TDI model ceased production (apart from a few choice liveries for special edition vehicles, such as the SVX). Here's our guide to the graphics Land Rover used, perfect if you're restoring a Defender and want to get the correct type - or if you're Land Rover nerds like us and actually enjoy this kind of stuff.

1983 - 1984: Beige Stripes

These retro beige stripes ran the full length of the vehicle body and featured the word "County" on the rear quarter panel. The typeface used was Copperplate Script.

1984 - 1986: The Kicked Stripes

The classic elongated s-shaped graphic, finished with a series of staggered intersects. These graphics would be beige & cream on most models, whilst white & grey models would have the light and dark blue seen here.

1986 - 1988: The Techno Series

1986 saw the launch of this new, much more complex series of intertwining bands. It's a bit of a 1980's design cliché, but retains some visual cues such as the line breaks seen in the previous decals. White models have the same design, but in green and blue instead, seen below:

1988-1990: Gradient Banding

The design becomes much cleaner, with 4 stripes that gradually fade in shades of silver, grouping together until the classy flick upwards near the rear quarter panel. The bottom most band's lettering is negative, allowing the paint colour to show through. On non-county models, the design varied slightly, the lines pointing the opposite direction and the corresponding model's designation is written on the door instead.

1990 - 1992: The Defender

The word Defender replaces 'County' except the last band, which still carries the trim level.

A variation for non-county models of the previous non-county graphics - this time, the Defender logo is added to the trailing band, just above the model number.

1992 - 1998: The Last of the Decals

The final evolution of stickers that Land Rover added to the Defender, phased out with the end of the 300TDI. These graphics are much cleaner, much more simple. They still carry the trim level on the rear wing.

Now go, use this information to dazzle your mates at the pub, bore your spouse or be able to decipher the production year of a Land Rover model on graphics alone.

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