A Defender 110 station wagon of Portugal's Guarda Nacional Republicana, the gendarmerie that polices the 94 per cent of the country outside the cities: dark green with a white roof lettered GUARDA NACIONAL REPUBLICANA, a white-over-bright-green waist stripe, the GNR crest on the rear quarter, white steel wheels and a blue light bar over the windscreen.
BASE VEHICLEDefender 110BUILT BYLand RoverIN SERVICE2009OPERATED INPortugalPRODUCTIONUnknownLAYOUT4 wheels · 110″
The record
The Guarda Nacional Republicana was founded in 1911 as Portugal's national gendarmerie: a military force under military law, headquartered at the Quartel do Carmo in Lisbon, that carries out preventive policing and highway patrol across some 94 per cent of the national territory — the countryside, small towns, borders and coast that the civilian Polícia de Segurança Pública does not cover. That beat is why the force has run hundreds of Land Rover Defenders and Nissan Patrols alongside its saloon patrol cars: much of it is unmade track, and a rural post needs something that can carry a section of guards off the road.
The Defenders wear the GNR's own scheme, which this model reproduces from photographs taken in the Algarve in April 2009: dark green bodywork under a white roof, the force's full name lettered in green along the white roof side above the windows, a bright green stripe edged in white along the waist, the GNR crest on the rear quarter panel, plain white steel wheels, a spare on the rear door and a blue light bar mounted at the front of the roof. The photographer noted that the Land Rovers and Patrols were 'already somewhat old' by 2009 but 'excellent cross-country with good carrying capacity'. The photographs show both a 110 station wagon at a roadside checkpoint and a 90 hard top parked at a post at Vila Real de Santo António; the 110, the row's base model, is what is modelled here. Which generation of Defender, its engine and how many the GNR bought are not stated in the source, so those figures are left open.
Specification
MANUFACTURERLand Rover
MANUFACTUREDDefender 110 station wagon; photographed in service April 2009, build date not recorded
ENGINENot recorded in the source (Defender 110 station wagon of the Tdi/Td5 era by appearance)
PRODUCTION RUNUnknown — the GNR is recorded as operating hundreds of Defenders
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INPortugal
STATUSunknown
BODYDefender 110 five-door station wagon
WARNING EQUIPMENTBlue light bar at the front of the roof
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINEDefender
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE110″
CATEGORYSpecial · Police
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.
Renders & references
Front three-quarterRegistry renderThree-quarterRegistry renderSideRegistry renderRearRegistry renderFrontRegistry renderGNR Defender 90 hard top and Nissan Patrol at Vila Real de Santo António, April 2009 — livery reference; linked only, all rights reserved by the publisher.Empire Emergencias ↗GNR Defender 110 station wagon at a roadside checkpoint, April 2009 — the body modelled; linked only.Empire Emergencias ↗