The record
The Royal Navy's bomb and mine disposal teams — the clearance divers and the ordnance specialists trained at HMS Vernon in Portsmouth — have run Land Rovers since the Series I, in a livery unlike any other service's: Royal Navy dark blue, with the front wings and rear wheel arches masked in red as a warning that the vehicle carried explosives, a blue beacon on the roof and a bonnet-mounted spare.
Two vehicles document the type. One is a 107-inch Series I station wagon, 45 RN 72, of HMS Vernon, photographed in preservation in April 2014. The other is the Series II 109-inch station wagon registered 67 RN 48, which this record follows: dark blue and white with the red wing and arch masking, RN in white on the offside wing and the doors, a red-and-white bomb disposal notice on the nearside front wing, a winch on the front bumper and the beacon on the roof. The Navy plates in the nn RN nn format date both to the 1950s and 1960s.
The evidence for 67 RN 48 rests on the diecast manufacturer's description of its prototype, which is why the record remains a draft: the vehicle is plausible and consistent with the photographed Series I, but no independent photograph or fleet record was found in the sources consulted. As a Series II 109 it carries the 2.25-litre petrol four. The Navy's later EOD Land Rovers, in white, are in this registry under the Royal Navy EOD record.
Research status: draft — identification, dates or figures could not all be pinned down; the summary says what is unresolved.
