The record
Santana Motor began assembling Land Rovers under licence at Linares, in the province of Jaén, in 1958, and within a few years the Spanish cars had drifted away from their Solihull equivalents in detail and then in substance. One of the boldest divergences was the Santana 1300 of 1967: a forward-control 1.3-tonne truck built on the long-wheelbase 109-inch Series IIA chassis with the cab and mechanicals pushed as far forward as possible to free up a long load area behind. It served the same purpose as Britain's Land Rover 101 Forward Control but was developed quite independently, and unlike the 101 it was sold to the general public as well as to government. Spaniards nicknamed it the 'Chato de Linares' — roughly 'the snub-nose from Linares'.
Mechanically the 1300 used the familiar 2,286 cc four, either the 81 CV petrol or the 62 CV diesel; a few examples built to special order for government bodies received Santana's own 3.4-litre six. Kerb weight was 1,760 kg for the petrol and 1,840 kg for the diesel, on a 2,778 mm wheelbase, and about 4,000 were built before the larger Santana 2000 replaced it in 1978. Because the type was sold as a chassis-cab as often as a complete truck, an unusually wide spread of bodies appeared on it: flat platforms, tippers, canvas-tilt cargo bodies, minibuses for the Guardia Civil, fire appliances by FIMESA of Madrid, and light recovery trucks with a jib and towing gear at the rear.
Recovery and roadside-assistance work suited the 1300 well: it was compact enough for narrow Spanish streets, had four-wheel drive for retrieving vehicles off the road, and offered a long rear deck for a winch, jib and tools under a canvas tilt. Spanish enthusiasts still refer to surviving examples such as the ADA roadside-assistance 1300s of the 1960s and 1970s. The specific operator lettering carried by the vehicle recorded here ('Luis Blanco') could not be traced to a documented business in published sources, so it should be read as representative of the many small independent recovery firms that ran these trucks rather than as a verified individual vehicle.
