Land Rover Series III 109" Petrol

Click Here for Full Screen Image - Click Here to Download Image

The Series III Land Rover arrived in 1971, although the new model was really only a mild facelift of the long-running Series II.

The headlights, which had migrated to the outside of the front wings in the late Series IIA, stayed put, the centre grille being made of plastic rather than steel much to the chagrin of the bush barbecue brigade! The instruments had moved in front of the driver in a tough plastic facia, it had a full synchromesh gearbox and from 1980 got a 5-bearing crankshaft and that was about your lot.

Land Rover were back to capacity, providing much needed financial support to British Leyland who were suffering with the frightening costs of new model development and the burden of rationalising the complex range of models they had inherited from Triumph, Rover and Jaguar. Fortunately for the business, the government contracts kept rolling in, the army and the emergency services buying an endless stream of new 88” and 109” Land Rovers which were used and abused across the land until the S3 was finally replaced by the coil sprung 90 in 1985.

This S3 109” 2.6 petrol was supplied new to West Sussex Fire Brigade on 1st July 1980 and remained in service with them until 2002. During that 22-year period it only covered 14,000 miles and comes with reams of maintenance history showing that it was serviced over 50 times – equivalent to one service every 280 miles!

Old MOTs show that since it was demobbed it has only covered another 5,000 miles, the odometer showing only 18,950 miles from new. It was last serviced 600 miles ago in September 2015 with an invoice on file for £716. The last MOT expired in August 2017 with only three minor advisories, and the vehicle has been kept unused and in storage since. Starting easily and running nicely as we moved it around for these photos it remains in excellent condition throughout.

It comes with lots of interesting detail about its time in service when it covered the area around Selsey, many Fire Brigade training notes and also features in a book called ‘Fifty Years of the West Sussex Fire Brigade 1948 – 1998’ which is included in the sale. It all adds up to a great package for the Land Rover or fire service enthusiast.