How a Land Rover conquered the world’s scariest jungle

“In a few years, you yourself may be driving through the Darién at high speed on a smooth and skilfully aligned surface. Your wife may lean out of the car window and say: What a lovely jungle.”

So wrote Richard Bevir in Autocar in 1961, having himself crossed the wilderness separating North and South America, in the expectation that the Pan-American Highway project would soon be completed.