NAMED MODELSpecial · Expedition & CampersFan favourites · ExpeditionUnited Kingdom
Cambridge.
'Cambridge' (SNX 761) is the light-blue sister car to 'Oxford' on the 1955-56 Oxford & Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition, the 'First Overland' from London to Singapore. Sold on in 1957, it crashed into a ravine in north-west Iran and has never been found.
BASE VEHICLESeries I 109″BUILT BYLand Rover (The Rover Company)IN SERVICE1955OPERATED INUnited KingdomLAYOUT4 wheels
The record
Cambridge was one of the two new Series I 86" Station Wagons supplied for the Oxford & Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition, which left London on 1 September 1955 and reached Singapore on 6 March 1956 - the first overland drive between the two cities, covering more than 18,000 miles in six months and six days. The two cars were painted in the rival universities' colours, Cambridge wearing the lighter blue against Oxford's dark blue. The six-man student crew filmed the journey for the BBC with backing from a young David Attenborough, and Tim Slessor's book First Overland became a classic of overland travel.
After the expedition both cars returned to the Rover Company and served as promotional vehicles until the Series II's 1958 launch made them obsolete as showpieces. Cambridge was sold through a dealer in July 1957 to Terence Bendixson, who set off with friends on a further expedition to the Middle East. Driving back towards the UK alone, travelling at night to avoid the heat, Bendixson ran off the road somewhere between Tabriz in Iran and Dogubayazit in Turkey and the car tumbled into a steep ravine. He was thrown clear, suffering a serious leg injury, and was evacuated to hospital.
Exactly where the accident happened, and whether anything of SNX 761 remains there, is unknown. Attempts by the First Overland community to trace the wreck - or any recovered remains - have so far failed, and Cambridge is counted among the great missing historic Land Rovers. Its survival is considered unlikely, in poignant contrast to Oxford, which was recovered from St Helena in 2017 and driven back from Singapore on the 2019 Last Overland.
Specification
MANUFACTURERLand Rover (The Rover Company)
MANUFACTURED1955–1955
ENGINE2.0 L petrol inline-four
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INUnited Kingdom
STATUSlost (crashed into a ravine between Tabriz and Dogubayazit in 1957; never recovered)
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINESeries I
WHEELS4
CATEGORYSpecial · Expedition & Campers, Fan favourites · Expedition
Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.
Variants & colours
Factory colours
Cambridge Blue (First Overland)
Codes on hover. Hex values are representative approximations of period paint unless a source states a measured value.
Renders & references
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