The record
Bender City is a Düsseldorf towing and recovery firm (its web address, bergemeister.de, is painted on the roof line) that runs a fleet of small wreckers for the inner city, where a full-size recovery truck cannot get into the multi-storey car parks and alleys. Around 2000 it had a Defender 90 truck cab converted into a lightweight tow truck: the pickup bed was replaced by a low deck with tool boxes and a hydraulic underlift boom that slides under a car's wheels and lifts it for towing, with chequer-plate sills and body sides to stand the wear. Numbered 12 in the fleet, it was photographed at work in April 2006.
The two Wikimedia Commons photographs are the references: white Defender 90 with black wheel arches, 'downtown' in red script on the doors and bonnet, Bender City Abschleppdienst in green on the doors with trade-association badges, the firm's address on the rear body, two amber beacons on the cab roof, chequer-plate sills and rear body, red and white chevrons on the bumper ends, white steel wheels and the underlift at the rear. The plate is obscured in the photographs and left blank. The registry model reproduces that vehicle in the Breakdown group. The conversion firm is not identified; the queue row's country of origin records the conversion as German work on a British chassis.
