The record
The SRV - officially 'Truck, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Lightweight, FFR, Winch, MC2' - was built under Project Bushranger using the Regional Force Surveillance Vehicle as its template but designed from the outset as an armed vehicle for overseas deployment, carrying four personnel for up to three days. Only 43 were built, with a further 12 RFSVs converted, and most were subsequently taken to SRV (SF) specification for special forces work, giving 55 SRV and SRV (SF) vehicles in total. That upgrade path is why the plain SRV is worth a record of its own: photographs of standard cars are comparatively rare, and REMLR's set of a factory-fresh example, 202-128, taken at Land Rover Australia's Rosehill plant in New South Wales around 2000, shows one on ordinary road rims rather than the heavy-duty split rims that were its issue fitment.
In standard form the SRV runs the same Isuzu 4BD1 3.9-litre diesel as the rest of the Perentie 4x4 fleet, on a GVM raised from 3,200 kg to 3,600 kg, and carries two spare tyres mounted externally on the left-hand side at the rear with two jerry cans on the right, storage racks along the sides of the roll-over protection structure, a normal-height snorkel, footwell air vents and protective bars running rearwards from the bush bar. Its weapon ring sits at the rear of the tub for a Minimi or MAG 58; the special forces kit later replaced that with a lower, heavier LRPV-pattern ring at the front of the ROPS for a .50-calibre gun, cut the roll cage down below the windscreen line, shortened the snorkel, mounted spare tyres in place of the doors and added a passenger-side weapon mount. Two features tell an SRV from an RFSV at a glance, and both show on the vehicle recorded here: the definite step in the canopy between the windscreen and the first ROPS bar, where the RFSV's canvas simply slopes up, and the externally mounted rear spares. SRVs also carry registrations in the 202-000 series, against the RFSV's 51-000 series.
The surveillance family were the last new Perenties built. By the time Bushranger SRVs were coming off the line the original JRA Limited plant at Moorebank had long closed - it shut on 30 September 1992 - and work had moved to Land Rover Australia at Rosehill. SRVs deployed on peacekeeping operations and served in Afghanistan alongside the 6x6 Long Range Patrol Vehicles, and the type was retired with the rest of the Land Rover fleet as the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon arrived under Project Land 121 from about 2012. The registry's companion record for the surveillance family covers the RFSV and the SRV (SF) in more depth.
