Weird dual wheel Land Rover

[Davie]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260646658902#v4-39

 

Anyone know anything about this strange beast? Made for the British army for use in Bosnia in 1982 ??? Seems a bit odd to me.

[Stormin]

Looks like it was originally based on a Stage one V8 given the front grill and the gear shift.

 

Notice there's air assistance on the rear leaf springs. Was this a test bed before they fitted air to the Range Rover. :rotfl:

[sirhc]

There was a thread on this on the EMLRA forum. It's real, but not British, it's from New Zeland.

 

Chris

[Willyslancs]

dont know anything about it, but i like it :cool2:

[The Bedford Boys]

That's one of the "secret squirrel" electronic warfare landrovers.

[Richard Farrant]

Anyone know anything about this strange beast? Made for the British army for use in Bosnia in 1982 ??? Seems a bit odd to me.

 

Bosnia troubles came 10 years later than that, so unlikley it was built specially for that reason.

[Adam Elsdon]

Looks like the kiwi's have gone down to barrack stores and got some old married quarters carpet to line the hard top with, we used to do that with ours.

 

The Tac sign on the rear, if its original looks like our Royal Signals, so possibly the Kiwi equivalent, and it must have been carrying some load to warrant a twin wheel rear axle setup.

[Davie]

Bosnia troubles came 10 years later than that, so unlikley it was built specially for that reason.

 

That's what I thought strange.

[mike65]

OK know about this from EMLRA thread.

So for those without access here is a brief synopsis of the result (ftom knowledgeable source).

 

Land Rover was a Stage 1 V8 full knock down "kit" sent to New Zealand for the military.

After 10 years it and others were modified for use in Bosnia.

THis included the double wheels and conversion to TDi.

It would most likly have been painted UN white.

 

Mike

[Stone]

That's one of the "secret squirrel" electronic warfare landrovers.

I didn't think this was right, so I asked a mate, this was his reply:

 

Hi Nick and definitely not an EW Wagon from Bosnia.

 

Having been in theatre 1992, 1995, 1998 and 2000 can seriously say I

have never come across a Lanny like this.

 

He's as secret squirrel as they come, so I reckon the NZ explanation holds a lot more weight.

 

[edited to add the following extra:

 

If I remember rightly six Wheelers were used at the metal factory in

Banja Luka and Vitez in the early days of Grapple II. Think they were SF

vehicles for transporting the big wiggs around and as snatch vehicles

when the op tempo dictated. Not sure how it ended up down-under.

]

 

Stone

Edited August 26, 2010 by Stone

[kiwikev]

The Bedford Boys are on to it.

 

The Rover is one of Four converted Stage 1 109's. These were taken out of service and were of all ages of Stage 1's (we had 566 of them), however one of them was from the very first batch of Stage 1's, possibly this one, and had probably scene 10 years hard service before being rebuilt.

I believe that the NZ Army EME Workshops did the conversion, but I could stand corrected on that.

They were converted around the time of the deployment to Bosnia however these four trucks have never left New Zealand, well not yet anyway.

 

They are basically a standard Stage 1 109 with a few Mods including

TDi300 Diesel, as was all the Bosnian bound rovers.

Tin top with no windows on sides or rear

Dual Rear Wheels

I think they have air suspension as well

Rather large extended mud guards to cover dual wheels

 

And they were used for......

 

They were used by the Electonic Warfare Squadron of the New Zealand Corps of Signals for amoungst other things tracking of electronic signals. aka Secret Squirrel work.

I remember seeing them operating on the streets of Auckland in the late 90's when there was an APEC confernce that President Clinton came to.

 

All in all a bit of an odd ball machine, I am hopping to go and have a close look at this week

 

All The Best

 

Kev

[rog8811]

 

 

When the ebay listing is over 30 days old it will disappear, on that basis I have snagged a couple of the photo's for posterity.

 

Regards rog8811