Queen’s Australian Series II

After the six UK-built 86″ review vehicles of Queen Elizabeth II's 1954 Commonwealth tour, the Australian Government commissioned its own fleet of ceremonial Land Rovers for future royal and dignitary visits, coinciding with the Queen Mother's 1958 visit. Six vehicles were built in 1958 from knocked-down kits on the 88″ chassis by Land Rover's Sydney assembler, Pressed Metal Corporation of Enfield, and originally painted Royal Claret. They differed from the UK-built review cars in having no sill panels and a flat bumper bar, and carried the review fit-out of chromed handrails, a protective screen for standing passengers and blue side-lamp lenses that were switched on when a member of the Royal family was aboard.

Records collated by Land Rover historian James Taylor and REMLR identify two of the six as chassis 1138-00056 and 1138-00058 — late Series I numbering — and two near-identical vehicles taken into Australian Army service around 1969 (ARNs 174-696 and 174-697, chassis 1138-00031 and 1138-00059) are presumed to come from the same batch; REMLR accordingly documents them as Series 1 Review Rovers. The registry's catalogue name follows the common description of these 1958 cars as Series IIs — the Army Museum Bandiana labels its survivors "Series 2 1958", and the closely related UK State Review vehicle of the same year ("State II", preserved in the British Motor Museum's Royal Collection) is a genuine Series II 88 — but the documented chassis numbers point to late Series I 88s, so this record's model line follows that evidence.

The fleet served for decades: one vehicle was used on vice-regal occasions in Queensland through the 1960s and 1970s and now forms part of the National Historical Collection at the National Museum of Australia, while the two ex-Army cars are displayed at the Army Museum Bandiana, repainted from their original claret during army service. Another of the type appears in Australian War Memorial photographs reviewing the ANZUK force in Singapore before Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1972. The Sydney-built review cars are the reason it can be said that the Land Rovers the Queen used in Australia were actually built in Australia.