The record
Through the 1970s and 1980s HM Coastguard's auxiliary rescue companies were equipped with short-wheelbase Land Rovers to carry cliff-rescue and search gear along the coast paths: dark blue Series IIIs with yellow roofs so they could be spotted from the air and the sea, a coastguard crest on the doors and MARINE RESCUE lettering on the body. A259 SYM is one of those, an 88-inch hard top registered in 1983–84 with a spare on the bonnet, spot lamps at the roof corners and a winch on the bumper for hauling rescue lines.
The Flickr photograph shows it parked beneath an H.M. COASTGUARD sign at a station house: dark blue body and wheels, yellow roof with H.M. COASTGUARD in black along its sides and front, MARINE RESCUE in red on the hard-top sides, a pale waist stripe, the crest on the doors, chrome spot lamps at the front corners of the roof, a small blue lamp above the grille, the winch and a white A259 SYM plate. The registry model reproduces that vehicle in the Marine group. The photograph is a scan of an older print; the queue row's London dating refers to where the print was photographed rather than where the Land Rover served, and the station in the picture is not identified.
Corrected at review: the door badge is the HM Coastguard crest (crowned octagon with the CG monogram) and MARINE RESCUE is in plain red.
