A 1952 military Series I stripped to a bare driveable chassis as an Army instructional aid at the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Bordon — on its 2014 retirement, the oldest serving Land Rover in Army service.
BASE VEHICLESeries I 109″CONVERTERREME / SEME BordonIN SERVICE1952OPERATED INUnited KingdomLAYOUT4 wheels
The record
This vehicle (chassis 26104724, military registration 17 BH 65) was built by Land Rover in 1952 under a military contract as an ordinary Series I with the 2.0-litre petrol engine and four-speed gearbox. Rather than being disposed of at the end of its road life, it was stripped down to a bare rolling chassis with exposed engine, transmission and running gear and a minimal driving station, and kept as an instructional tool so that trainee mechanics could see and work on every component. From the 1960s it served at S.E.M.E. — the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers at Bordon, Hampshire — where generations of REME recruits learned on it; in later years it was retained 'to show today's army recruits what spark plugs, points and dynamos were'.
The Dunsfold Collection restored it to running condition in 1988 for Land Rover's 40th anniversary celebrations, and it continued in its instructional role afterwards: when it was finally retired in 2014 it was the oldest serving Land Rover in Army service. It is now part of the Dunsfold Collection's exhibition fleet and remains driveable. Driveable-chassis training aids of this kind were used by the Army and by Rover itself for mechanical instruction, but no production figures for such conversions are recorded; this documented Bordon survivor is the registry's reference example.
Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.
Renders & references
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