NAMED MODELSpecial · Prototypes & CustomUnited Kingdom
OTAL amphibious Land Rover
The 1965 OTAL — One Ton Amphibious Land Rover — a one-off factory prototype with watertight aluminium hull compartments and foam-filled buoyancy, built for Australian Army trials and propelled in the water by its own spinning tyres.
BASE VEHICLESeries II 109″BUILT BYLand Rover (The Rover Company)IN SERVICE1965OPERATED INUnited KingdomPRODUCTION1 prototypeLAYOUT4 wheels
The record
The OTAL (One Ton Amphibious Land Rover) was built in 1965 as a one-off prototype for evaluation by the Australian Army. It was based on a Land Rover One Ton chassis (chassis number 97/1, registration KYY 501C) with the 2.6-litre six-cylinder petrol engine and four-speed gearbox. Rather than adding a boat hull, the design made the vehicle's own bodywork float: the cab, wings and rear body were built as watertight aluminium compartments, with every spare space stuffed with expanded foam for buoyancy. There was no propeller or water jet — propulsion and steering in the water came from the rotating tyres, which is why the sides carry unusually deep sealed compartments.
The prototype swam at Packington in 1966 and went to Australia for trials, but was never accepted and returned to the UK. In the early 1970s it lived at Eastnor Castle, Land Rover's traditional test estate, and by 1983 it had passed to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust at Gaydon. The Dunsfold Collection acquired it and carried out a full restoration in 2008; in 2013 the restored OTAL took part in the Land Rover 65th Anniversary event at Packington Park, tested on the same slipway used during its original trials. It remains part of the Dunsfold Collection.
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 render
