Thread: Land Rovers Army 2nd Choice

It breaks my heart but turtle your on the right track there..

when the series rover was replaced the 3 main contenders were

jeep, toyota and landrover..... one of the more terminal tests was a drive it till it stops over railway sleepers on a runway... drive up turn around drive back hitting the sleepers with the left side then the right side of the vehicle.. (you get a brief glimps of something like this in the top gears landrover review on the series one)

The jeeps engine fell out gearbox and all... the toyota disconnected the transfercase from the gearbox..

and the landrover...

well the front flaps fell off, the doors came off, the dash fell apart, the headlight lenses and the parklights fell away... the heater fan shook apart.. you get the idea... and after x laps more than either the cruiser or the jeep did the drivers gave it. "can we stop now, we're hurtin." Ive seen the footage of the trial it was some crusty old truckie WO's home video up in darwin about 8 years ago now..

The rover was ready for more, ok the unimportant bits had fallen off but everything actuall needed to make it drive was working.

class by class landrovers only ever come second to toyotas in 2 fields... max power output from the engine and.. Cost per unit, the toyotas are a lot cheaper and proove, you get what you pay for.

No Turtle, Ford have no interest in Military contracts via Land Rover. Maybe via the F Series, but not Landy. Military was the first department scrapped after the Ford takeover.
Under BMW's stewardship, Australia was going to be responsible for Military design and South Africa building, hell, they were working on the TD5 to re-power the Isuzu's to extend the 110's life and it was all scrapped.

Remember what Ford's plans are for Land Rover, it's a luxury marque, to compete with Lexus.

you got it in one rick130

As far as I can remember, the perentie contract required maximum commonality between the 3/4 tonne and 2 tonne vehicles. When Toyota realised this would mean developing a special vehicle for the contract, they lost interest and did not submit a proposal.

John

Amen.

this was lifted from remlr, which in turn, was lifted from the May '85 edition of Bushdriver magazine. remlr has removed the photo, i was able to take one from file though. be patient when loading, it's halfway down the page.
only eight of these came in, so there's a 1 in 8 chance the one in the photo is mine.



R.A.N. 110" UTILITIES
The Royal Australian Navy were the first with 110" models.
"The R.A.N. has taken delivery of a number of new Land Rover One Ten four-wheel-drive utilities. The Navy Land Rovers are the first One Tens to go into service with an Australian Defence Force.
"Land Rover has enjoyed a long association with the Australian Navy and, whilst the Navy does not buy in numbers as large as those of the Army, it nonetheless has been a staunch supporter of the famous British all-terrain vehicle.
"The new Land Rover One Tens, painted in pristine Navy-white will go into service at major port facilities and will be used by Naval Police and will also be taken on board during naval exercises.
"Navy personnel are reportedly very satisfied with the new coil-sprung Land Rover, highlighting the improvements to ride, general comfort, and performance.
"With the sailors now sampling One Tens, JRA Limited awaits the outcome of more than one year of intensive testing of the new Land Rover in a bid to win the prestigious contract to supply both four-wheel-drive and six-wheel-drive Land Rover to the Australian Army as replacements for its current Land Rover fleet. Land Rover has supplied the Australian Army for more than 25 years." The accompanying photo was of a standard civilian issue One Ten truck cab utility without the County stripes. The only naval aspect is that the unit is parked at a wharf with a warship behind (Bush Driver magazine, May-June 1985)

early yoot photo.doc

In the 1980's I was working atTutts Machinery Group in Salisbury, Brisbane, and the Jeep plant was about 100 metres away. I knew a couple of the Jeepo guys from WhiteTrucks andwe often had a drink together. One day they were most unhappy as the Army had s--tcanned Jeep about the vehicle/vehicles provided for evaluation. Apparently Army people would 'phone dealers around Australia at random and request availability of various parts. Jeep parts availability was almost nil outside metro. areas. Their country dealers were all multi-franchise dealers who barely stocked a part for their low volume sellers. Wonder what they would think of Land Rover parts availability today, what with hardly a dealer left outside the capital cities.

Originally Posted by Bushie

Why would that be a problem

From memory when the Army called the contact that Mack won, Leyland put up the Mastiff 6X6. It didn't get the contact but the Mack was considerably heavier than the spec called for, part of the reason that the Mastiff failed was due to lighter castings to keep the weight down which introduced their own problems.


Martyn

Bushie -- I think it had something to do with the ADF's 'one fuel policy' (diesel).

I remember reading somewhere the Poms were in the same boat when they ditched the 101s because of the petrol V8s. I think they would have preferred keeping them after their success in Gulf I.