The record
Otokar of Istanbul had assembled coil-sprung Land Rovers from CKD kits under licence since the late 1980s, and by the 2000s it was building complete special-purpose bodies on them. The ambulance is the best-documented of those in quantity. In 2005 the firm secured an initial contract for more than three hundred vehicles for the Iraqi security forces, distributed through the United States; a second batch took the total supplied to nearly four hundred.
The Iraqi vehicles were two-stretcher Defender 110s with an over-cab body — the rounded roof carried forward over the cab, giving standing room and a continuous enclosed volume from bulkhead to tailgate. Otokar also offered a Defender 130 version with a separate rectangular rear body. Inside, a simple flip-down stretcher rack folds from each side wall; with both racks stowed the compartment carries up to eight seated wounded plus an attendant on a central rear-facing seat.
Mechanically the vehicles use the 300 Tdi, fitted with raised air intakes to reduce dust ingestion — a sensible precaution for Iraqi service. The finish is matt NATO green with the Red Crescent applied to all four sides.
The type has served beyond Iraq. Civilian versions were built for the Turkish Ministry of Health, and an Otokar Defender ambulance was photographed with an Albanian EOD team on the NATO enhanced Forward Presence mission in Latvia in 2017, which places the design in at least three national inventories.
