The record
Santana Motor of Linares built Land Rovers under licence from 1958 and developed its own forward-control truck in 1967, the 1.3-tonne Santana 1300, on 109-inch Series IIA running gear. Its replacement arrived in February 1979: the S-2000, or Santana 2000, with the payload raised to two tonnes and a larger, more adaptable forward cab. Power came from Santana's own 3,429 cc straight six — 104 CV and 241 Nm on petrol, 94 CV and 309 Nm on diesel — through a four-speed synchromesh gearbox and two-speed transfer case with four-wheel drive. It measured 4,949 mm long by 1,960 mm wide, stood 2,235 mm over the cab, cleared 280 mm and grossed 4,600 kg.
Like the 1300, the 2000 was sold as a chassis-cab so operators could specify their own bodywork, and the factory listed tipper, crane platform, snow plough, insulated van, irrigation tanker and fire-fighting configurations. A simple cargo body under a canvas tilt on a hoop frame is the most basic of these, and the natural choice for carrying troops or general stores; Santana's canvas tops were a familiar feature of the company's military range, where the 88 Ligero and 109 Militar were commonly supplied with a canvas roof and a fibreglass hard top as an option.
What could not be established for this record is that the Spanish armed forces operated the forward-control Santana 2000 in this configuration. Santana's military business ran through the 88 Ligero, the 109 Militar and later the Aníbal, and the surviving Spanish-language literature on the 1300 and 2000 treats them as civil and public-works vehicles — although the Spanish state was Santana's largest customer, and Spanish Wikipedia notes that some 1300s were built to special order for government bodies. This record derives from user-supplied reference photographs that could not be traced to a published source, so it is recorded as a draft: a real chassis and a real body style, with the military service unverified.
Research status: draft — identification, dates or figures could not all be pinned down; the summary says what is unresolved.
