Land Rover Llama
Land Rover's cancelled mid-1980s forward-control project — officially the 110 Forward Control, codenamed Llama — built on a strengthened One Ten chassis with a tilting glass-fibre cab to replace the MoD's 101 gun tractors; eleven prototypes and one production-line vehicle were built in 1986–87 before cancellation in early 1988.
History
The Llama began in 1985 as Land Rover's bid to win the Ministry of Defence contract to replace its fleet of 101 Forward Control gun tractors, with an eye to civilian sale as well. Heavily based on the contemporary One Ten, it used a thicker-steel derivative of that chassis with coil-spring suspension, a five-speed gearbox and the 3.5-litre Rover V8 on Zenith/Stromberg carburettors tuned to about 110 horsepower; one prototype instead carried an 85-horsepower turbodiesel with poor results. The tilting cab was of glass-fibre construction, and bodies included the enclosed box vans of the pilot-production run.
Eleven prototypes plus a single production-line vehicle were built during 1986–87 for MoD evaluation. Testing exposed instability over rough ground from the tall, coil-sprung layout and weak performance when laden, and the petrol V8 sat badly with an MoD that had just standardised on diesel. The Ministry chose the Dodge 50-based Renault-Dodge RB44 instead, and without those guaranteed orders Land Rover judged a civilian launch — against the Unimog, and with no suitable engine — too risky, cancelling the project in early 1988.
Several vehicles survive: the sole pilot-production example, an olive-green box van, is displayed at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, while prototypes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 10 are held by the Dunsfold Collection, and one road-legal vehicle was assembled from remaining parts in 1998.
Imagery
Registry record
- Manufacturer
- Land Rover
- Manufactured
- project 1985; prototypes 1986–87; cancelled early 1988
- Engine type
- 3.5 L Rover V8 petrol (~110 hp); one turbodiesel prototype
- Production run
- 11 prototypes + 1 production-line vehicle
- Country of origin
- United Kingdom
- Status
- preserved (Gaydon; five prototypes at Dunsfold)
Catalogue data
- Record kind
- Named model
- Wheels
- 4
Base catalogue fields are exported from the Difflocked game. In-game physics values are arcade tuning, not certified historical measurements, and are deliberately not shown as specifications here.
Sources & citations
Researched sources
- Land Rover Llama ↗ — Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09-10)
- The Story of the Land Rover Llama, the COE Truck You Didn't Know Existed ↗ — autoevolution (accessed 2026-09-10)
- LandRover Llama, the Prototype Forward Control Land-Rover 4WD ↗ — allisons.org (accessed 2026-09-10)
Drive it
This vehicle is playable in the Difflocked racing game.
RACE THE LAND ROVER LLAMA ↗Registry record updated 2026-09-09T15:03:27.436Z · status: researched