Bender City Defender 90 Abschleppwagen

History

Bender City is a Düsseldorf towing and recovery firm (its web address, bergemeister.de, is painted on the roof line) that runs a fleet of small wreckers for the inner city, where a full-size recovery truck cannot get into the multi-storey car parks and alleys. Around 2000 it had a Defender 90 truck cab converted into a lightweight tow truck: the pickup bed was replaced by a low deck with tool boxes and a hydraulic underlift boom that slides under a car's wheels and lifts it for towing, with chequer-plate sills and body sides to stand the wear. Numbered 12 in the fleet, it was photographed at work in April 2006.

The two Wikimedia Commons photographs are the references: white Defender 90 with black wheel arches, 'downtown' in red script on the doors and bonnet, Bender City Abschleppdienst in green on the doors with trade-association badges, the firm's address on the rear body, two amber beacons on the cab roof, chequer-plate sills and rear body, red and white chevrons on the bumper ends, white steel wheels and the underlift at the rear. The plate is obscured in the photographs and left blank. The registry model reproduces that vehicle in the Breakdown group. The conversion firm is not identified; the queue row's country of origin records the conversion as German work on a British chassis.

Imagery

Registry record

Manufacturer

Land Rover (Defender 90 truck cab)

Manufactured

Td5-era Defender 90 (inferred); photographed April 2006

Modifier / coachbuilder

Unidentified German converter for Bender City (underlift tow-truck body)

Engine type

Land Rover Td5 2.5 L turbo-diesel (inferred)

Production run

1

Country of origin

Germany

Operated in

Germany

Status

unknown

Catalogue data

Record kind

Named model

Model line

Defender

Wheels

4

Nominal wheelbase

90″

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.

Sources & citations

Researched sources

• Land Rover Defender 90 breakdown truck conversion BENDER CITY, Düsseldorf – front left (Wikimedia Commons) ↗ — Wikimedia Commons (accessed 2026-09-12)
• Category: Tow trucks in Germany (Wikimedia Commons) ↗ — Wikimedia Commons (accessed 2026-09-12)

Catalogue references

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Land_Rover_Defender_90_breakdown_truck_conversion_BENDER_CITY_Duesseldorf_Germany_Gen1_frontleft_2006-04-09_U.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Land_Rover_Defender_90_breakdown_truck_conversion_BENDER_CITY_Duesseldorf_Germany_Gen1_frontleft_2006-04-09_U.jpg ↗