Minerva Blindé

History

Among the specialist variants Minerva built on its licence-produced Series I 80" chassis were armoured assault vehicles fitted, in the Land Rover Series One Club's words, with heavy plating, armoured glass screens and machine gun mounts. The conversion — usually called the Blindé (French for 'armoured') — was produced around 1955 for the parachute reconnaissance role with the Belgian Para-Commandos, an open, doorless gun-truck in the mould of the SAS's armed Series Is.

Protection was concentrated on the frontal arc: quarter-inch steel plate across the nose, an armoured radiator grille, a small bulletproof windscreen and thick bulletproof glass. Armament comprised twin front-mounted machine guns and a single rear pintle gun, typically supplemented by a bazooka and a radio with wrap-around aerial. Like all Minerva TTs it used the UK-supplied 2.0-litre Rover drivetrain under Belgian-made steel bodywork with the marque's characteristic sloped flat front wings.

Estimates of the number converted vary between 36 and 60, and very few survive — many were destroyed or abandoned during the Belgian withdrawal from the Congo in the early 1960s. Preserved examples include an armed reconnaissance vehicle displayed with a Para-Commando diorama in the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels and a restored bulletproof example returned to running order in 2010 by a former Belgian Parachute Regiment member.

Imagery

Registry record

Manufacturer

Minerva (Société Nouvelle Minerva), under Rover licence

Manufactured

circa 1955 (within 1952-1956 Minerva TT production)

Engine type

2.0 L (1,997 cc) Rover petrol inline-four, UK-supplied

Production run

~36-60 armoured conversions

Country of origin

Belgium

Status

retired; very few survivors preserved

Catalogue data

Record kind

Named model

Model line

Series I

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

• A Rare Bulletproof Minerva Series I 4x4 Special Forces Vehicle ↗ — Silodrome (accessed 2026-09-10)
• The Minerva 4×4 story – 1951-58 (armoured assault vehicles with heavy plating, armoured glass screens and machine gun mounts) ↗ — Land Rover Series One Club (accessed 2026-09-10)
• MLR Pt.55 ~ Minerva TT Belgian-built Series One Land Rovers ↗ — Joint Forces News (Bob Morrison) (accessed 2026-09-10)