Hotspur Sandringham 139″ AA Gun Carrier
Air-defence configuration of the Hotspur/SMC Sandringham 6 6×6 Stage One V8, carrying a twin 20 mm Rheinmetall Rh 202 anti-aircraft mount on the load bed; documented only from period Sandringham 6 promotional material and believed to have remained an exhibition demonstrator.
History
Among the military bodies offered on the Sandringham 6 — the Land Rover-approved 6×6 conversion of the Series III Stage One V8 engineered by SMC Engineering (Bristol) and marketed with Hotspur — period brochure material shows an air-defence carrier mounting twin Rheinmetall Rh 202 20 mm autocannon, each fed from 270-round magazines, on the rear platform. The two-ton-payload 6×6 chassis, in 125-inch (S6) or 139-inch (S6E) wheelbase, gave the light AA system a mobile mount while retaining over 90 per cent standard Land Rover parts.
The Sandringham 6 was first shown at the 1980 British Army Equipment Exhibition at Aldershot and entered production in 1982, and the AA configuration is believed to have appeared as a demonstration of the chassis' versatility in that period. No customer for the anti-aircraft variant is documented, and with the entire Sandringham 6 run put at around a dozen vehicles it almost certainly remained a brochure offering and exhibition prototype. Documentation is thin — chiefly scanned promotional photographs — so details of this variant should be treated with caution.
Registry record
- Manufacturer
- Land Rover (donor Series III Stage One V8)
- Manufactured
- offered early 1980s; believed exhibition prototype only
- Modifier / coachbuilder
- Hotspur Armoured Products / Sandringham Motor Company (SMC Engineering (Bristol) Ltd)
- Engine type
- 3.5 L Rover V8 petrol (Stage One)
- Production run
- believed prototype/demonstrator only
- Country of origin
- United Kingdom
- Status
- unknown
Catalogue data
- Record kind
- Named model
- Model line
- Series III
- Wheels
- 6
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
- Hotspur Sandringham 6x6 Air Defence (2x Rh202) — suggestion post reproducing period Sandringham 6 brochure photographs ↗ — War Thunder forum (community post citing Sandringham 6 brochures and BAEE 1980 documentation) (accessed 2026-09-10)
- Hotspur Sandringham (Sandringham 6 development, BAEE 1980, production from 1982, S6/S6E wheelbases) ↗ — worldhistory.biz (accessed 2026-09-10)
- HOTSPUR SANDRINGHAM 6x6 LAND ROVER Brochure (period sales literature, sold example) ↗ — WorthPoint (accessed 2026-09-10)
Catalogue references
- User-supplied Sandringham 139-inch brochure and APC/AA photographs
Drive it
This vehicle is playable in the Difflocked racing game.
RACE THE HOTSPUR SANDRINGHAM 139″ AA GUN CARRIER ↗Registry record updated 2026-09-09T15:03:27.176Z · status: draft