Land Rover's new Enterprise

A Land Rover in space? You’d better believe it. Land Rover has teamed up with fellow British brand Virgin to become a commercial partner on Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo – the world’s first commercial spaceship.

So we won’t actually see a Discovery rocketing into the stratosphere, but rather see Land Rover’s name stencilled on the side of Virgin’s cool-looking space jet.

The new deal was announced in New York today, just minutes after Land Rover ripped the covers off its Discovery Vision Concept vehicle, which you can read about by clicking here.

Under this new commercial relationship, apart from the usual marketing and advertising spin, Land Rover plans to base a fleet of vehicles at Virgin’s Galactic test centre in the Mojave Desert and at its New Mexico base, where “future astronauts” will drive them every day during training.

Another benefit, says Land Rover, is the scope for SpaceShipTwo to encourage youngsters to pursue a future in science, technology and engineering, and then for the car company to potentially snaffle them up after they complete university.

As for the chances of any technology transfer between the spaceship and Land Rover, we doubt it.