What is this car for?

January 19, 2010 3:49 AM

What is the nature and purpose of this Land Rover variant or customization?
posted by TheophileEscargot to Travel & Transportation (14 answers total)

Best answer: Well, the "TV" you can just make out written on the back (I guess it was done with duct tape) would suggest a press vehicle of some kind. The hatch in the roof would be useful for filming from, and it looks lightly armoured. My guess is that it's a press vehicle used somewhere dodgy like a war zone.
posted by jonesor at 4:11 AM on January 19, 2010

Slab sides and small rectangular windows make it look armoured. Has walk-in door at rear of minimal size, so my guess is armoured troop-carrier or other (ex?) military support vehicle. Are they little blue lights on top? Could be riot police.
posted by polyglot at 4:13 AM on January 19, 2010

Oh, I didn't notice the TV. Looks very much like an afterthought though.
posted by polyglot at 4:15 AM on January 19, 2010

It reminds me of the sort of vehicle you'd see as part of some kind of UN convoy, with the font type of writing placed in an obvious area. I think Jonesor is on it.
posted by Atreides at 4:27 AM on January 19, 2010

Looks like a Snatch or Tangi landrover, like the police use in Northern Ireland. The plates are UK as well.
posted by derbs at 4:43 AM on January 19, 2010

Response by poster: Location info: this is a car park in Chiswick, London, UK.

Thanks for the answers so far, keep 'em coming!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 4:47 AM on January 19, 2010

Best answer: I agree with the above, here's a tiny amount of extra info from the dvla:

The vehicle details for K??? K?? are:
Date of Liability 	01 10 2010 
Date of First Registration 	22 04 1993 
Year of Manufacture 	1993 
Cylinder Capacity (cc) 	3528CC 
Fuel Type 	Petrol 
Vehicle Colour 	WHITE 

posted by samj at 5:19 AM on January 19, 2010

My guess - it's an airport police Land Rover used at Heathrow.

It is almost certainly police. You can make out what look like blue lights on the top.

It's heavily armoured, with riot spec air conditioning system. As it's largely unmarked, I would guess it was for an armed response team.
posted by MuffinMan at 5:25 AM on January 19, 2010

It might be worth asking at the Land Rover UK Forums.
posted by zamboni at 6:33 AM on January 19, 2010

Best answer: I'm now almost certain it's a Snatch (based on this picture). Note the rear steps, light covers, and small rear door and windows.

The TV written on the back is interesting. Surplus ex-army that was bought by the BBC (chiwick, west london, not far from white city) for war reporting purposes?

I'm not sure you'll ever get a final answer though, unless you can convince the DVLA to disclose its registered owner!
posted by derbs at 7:40 AM on January 19, 2010

I was going to say the ones the PSNI have
posted by Coobeastie at 7:52 AM on January 19, 2010

Pressed submit too early!

I was going to say the ones the PSNI have, but it's rather more lightly armoured than they are.
posted by Coobeastie at 7:53 AM on January 19, 2010

Best answer: A 1992 Washington Post article (excerpt from a pay archive):

Snipers opened fire a few days ago on a white Land-Rover that hauls reporters around for the BBC.

Three rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle hit the vehicle. But to what was presumably the surprise and chagrin of the would-be killers, the bullets all bounced off.

For the British Broadcasting Corp. has gone totally bulletproof.

It has sent home all its "soft-skinned vehicles," the nom de guerre for the kind of cars off which bullets don't bounce. In their place, the BBC is assembling a three-vehicle fleet of armored cars built to withstand a wide range of ordnance, including sniper bullets and mortar shrapnel.

A 1994 speech by Vin Ray, the British Broadcasting Corporation's Deputy Head of Newsgathering:

In 1992 — only 12 years ago — as a producer I drove the BBC's first ever armoured vehicle in Sarajevo — and I was wearing one of the corporations first flack jackets. These days flack jackets are standard issue and we have a fleet of armoured cars.

Kate Adie's 2002 biography:

Only failing to possess a current TV licence or having sex during transmission of an Act of Worship would see you fed to the lions and dismissed. Not to mention committing a Royal to the hereafter before they’d officially dropped off the perch. Anything else– being drunk on air, crashing £45,000 worth of BBC armoured land rover, flying to the wrong country, embarrassing the government, enraging cabinet ministers, falling asleep while live on air to the Today programme– was treated as an internal matter, to be dealt with rigorously, while simultaneously mounting a stout public defence of the reasons for your behaviour. I should know; I’ve done all of these things.

A 2002 article on journalist security:

When it comes to safety consciousness in the field, CNN is the high roller. So far, 150 correspondents have been through the weeklong exercise with London's AKE, a group that also has supplied security consultants to CNN crews in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Somalia. The consultants manage, maintain and transport the network's fleet of armored vehicles and design special protective gear, including lightweight flak jackets for staff in war zones.

Short version: the BBC, and other media and security organisations, own armoured cars, and some of them are in London.
posted by zamboni at 8:21 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Cylinder Capacity (cc) 3528CC

3.5 litre? It's certainly specced for carrying some armour, that's the V8 petrol. Bet the fuel economy is "interesting".
posted by hardcode at 11:28 AM on January 19, 2010