NAMED MODELSpecial · CommercialUnited KingdomSouth Africa
Gondwana Game Viewer.
The open game-viewing Defender 110 of Gondwana Game Reserve in the Western Cape: three stepped rows of padded bench seats behind the cab, a mesh guard across the front and a tracker's seat perched above the front corner — the standard South African safari conversion, photographed on the reserve in 2008.
Gondwana is a private game reserve near Mossel Bay on the Western Cape's Garden Route, opened in the 2000s to bring the Big Five back to fynbos country. Like most South African reserves it runs game drives in open Defenders: a Defender 110 with the rear body cut away and replaced by tiers of forward-facing bench seats, each row higher than the one in front so that every guest can see over the guide, padded grab rails, a mesh guard over the windscreen frame, and a tracker's seat on a bracket above the front wing for the man who reads the ground ahead.
The vehicle in this record was photographed at Gondwana in 2008, and Wikimedia Commons categorises it as a Defender 110 of the L315 generation. Which engine it carries, who built the game-viewing body and how many Gondwana runs are not published; South Africa's game-viewer trade is a cottage industry of local converters, and the registry's Defender 130 safari record covers the type more generally.
Specification
MANUFACTURERLand Rover
MODIFIER / COACHBUILDERSouth African game-viewing conversion (converter not recorded)
MANUFACTUREDDefender 110 in service by 2008, when photographed
ENGINEDefender 110 (L315) — 300 Tdi, Td5 or Puma by year; not stated in the source
PRODUCTION RUNUnknown — one vehicle documented
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom / South Africa
OPERATED INSouth Africa
STATUSin service
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINEDefender
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE110″
CATEGORYSpecial · Commercial
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 renderGame Viewer at Gondwana Game ReserveWelcomematt22 at en.wikipedia · Public domain ↗