Borneo Safari Recovery Defender 90
Blue Land Rover Defender 90 truck cab No. 84 of the Borneo 4WD recovery team at the 2009 Borneo Safari, with an external roll cage, snorkel, winch, white steel wheels on mud tyres and a bed of lashed-down recovery gear, photographed at the flag-off in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
History
The Borneo Safari is Sabah's annual jungle 4x4 expedition-race, flagged off from Kota Kinabalu each autumn and run for a week through logging tracks, river crossings and mud. Competitors are shadowed by recovery crews from the organising clubs, whose own trucks have to be at least as capable as the entries, and in 2009 the Borneo 4WD recovery team fielded this Defender 90: a truck cab with an external cage to protect it in rollovers, a snorkel for the river crossings, a winch, and a bed full of straps, shackles and ground anchors lashed down under a tarp.
The Flickr photograph from the flag-off shows it plastered with the event's sponsor stickers: blue 90 truck cab with a black roll cage over cab and bed, snorkel on the left A-pillar, white steel wheels on mud-terrain tyres, black cases and a blue tarp strapped down with yellow ratchet straps, chequer plate on the rear corners, the white Borneo Safari 2009 rally plate numbered 84 and a RECOVERY / Borneo 4WD sticker on the doors among decals for ARB, Mobil Delvac, Kovlar and others. Its plate is not legible in the photograph and is left blank. The registry model reproduces that vehicle in the Breakdown group, with the sticker wall simplified to the legible items.
Imagery
Registry record
- Manufacturer
- Land Rover (Defender 90 truck cab)
- Manufactured
- Pre-Puma Defender 90 (inferred); photographed October 2009
- Modifier / coachbuilder
- Borneo 4WD recovery team (cage, snorkel, winch and load)
- Engine type
- Land Rover Tdi/Td5 2.5 L turbo-diesel (inferred)
- Production run
- 1
- Country of origin
- United Kingdom
- Operated in
- Malaysia
- 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
- Borneo Safari 2009 recovery Land Rover No. 84 (Flickr, sam4605) ↗ — Flickr (accessed 2026-09-12)
Catalogue references
- https://www.flickr.com/photos/sam4605/4060551190/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/sam4605/4060551190/ ↗
Registry record updated 2026-09-12T08:38:34.221Z · status: researched