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Named model · Series IIA · 1961–1972 donors, with 50 of the 66 known vehicles built in 1968–69

FWSF

Not an ambulance conversion but an ordinary Series IIA 109 General Service truck given a set of stretcher rails: the Australian Army's 'Fitted With Stretcher Frame' vehicles carried C-section rails and a bulkhead clamp under the standard canvas tilt, so a cargo truck could lift casualties and then go back to carrying stores. Two census codes covered them — 6028D, and 6028E with a winch — and REMLR's register lists 66 examples, almost all 1968–69 builds.

Special · AmbulancesMilitary · Australia
FWSF — front three-quarter render

Factory colours

Codes on hover. Hex values are representative approximations of period paint unless a source states a measured value.

History

The Australian Army ran two purpose-built Land Rover ambulances: the 109-inch, box-bodied four-stretcher vehicle (census 6362B, or 6362C with winch) and the short-wheelbase Forward Area Ambulance (6005A). The Fitted With Stretcher Frame trucks were neither. They were plain 109-inch General Service cargo trucks — canvas tilt, tailgate, drop sides — into which the Army fitted the stretcher-carrying hardware from the ambulance: C-section rails of the kind used in the four-stretcher body, plus a clamp mounted on top of the bulkhead between the driver's compartment and the cargo area. The rails could be stowed against one side so the tailgate still opened and the tray still worked as a tray. In Australian nomenclature the vehicles remained 'Truck, Utility, 3/4 Ton, GS, Cargo, Fitted With Stretcher Frame' — cargo trucks first, casualty carriers second.

Two census codes covered the fitment: 6028D for the standard truck and 6028E for the winch version. REMLR's register lists 66 vehicles between them — 62 coded 6028D and four 6028E — of which 65 are Series IIA and one a 1961 Series 2. All are 109-inch. The build dates cluster hard: one each in 1961, 1966 and 1970, two in 1967, ten in 1971, one in 1972, and then 25 in 1968 and 25 in 1969, which is to say the great majority came from the two large mid-Vietnam-era Australian Army orders. Disposals run from 1972 through to 1991.

Markings were inconsistent to the point of being a poor identifier. REMLR, which in 2026 published the first page dedicated to the type and notes that its photographs are 'quite rare', records four distinct treatments among the handful of known in-service images: a red cross in a white circle on both doors; the same plus one on the rear passenger side of the bonnet; crosses on the canopy sides just aft of the front doors; and no visible markings at all. The registry's Australian medical-vehicle records also include the FAA (see `forward-area-ambulance`), and REMLR is explicit that the exact chronology between the FWSF trucks, the 88-inch Forward Area Ambulances and the standard four-stretcher ambulances is unknown — the three overlapped rather than succeeded one another, and how the Army decided which unit got which is not documented.

Paint followed the fleet. The 1961, 1966 and 1967 vehicles would have been delivered in gloss Deep Bronze Green, the colour the Australian Military Forces used until April 1967; everything from the 1968 and 1969 batches onward left the factory in lustreless Australian Olive Drab, the flat colour adopted for Vietnam service. A small number of Series 2 and 2A specialist vehicles — ambulances, workshops, gunbuggies — survived long enough to be repainted into the three-colour olive drab, tan and black camouflage of the late 1980s, but there is no evidence any FWSF truck did.

Survivors are thin. REMLR's register notes ARN 172-484 ('Aggie') as restored in 1991–92, ARN 172-511 as a paddock find in a member's hands, one chassis sold on eBay in 2007, and several vehicles passing through the Bandiana and Mt Claremont disposal auctions of 1989–91. Because the conversion is a set of rails and a clamp rather than a body, an unrestored FWSF is essentially indistinguishable from any other 109 GS once the fittings are removed — which is why REMLR flags one restored vehicle photographed at Corowa in 2013 as of uncertain status.

Imagery

This is the vehicle the FWSF was NOT: the Australian Army's purpose-built 109-inch four-stretcher box ambulance (census 6362B), ARN 112-227, at the Army Museum Bandiana. The FWSF trucks borrowed this vehicle's C-section stretcher rails but kept the ordinary canvas-tilt cargo body. No freely licensed photograph of an FWSF truck is known.
This is the vehicle the FWSF was NOT: the Australian Army's purpose-built 109-inch four-stretcher box ambulance (census 6362B), ARN 112-227, at the Army Museum Bandiana. The FWSF trucks borrowed this vehicle's C-section stretcher rails but kept the ordinary canvas-tilt cargo body. No freely licensed photograph of an FWSF truck is known. sv1ambo (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY 2.0 ↗

Registry record

Manufacturer
Land Rover (Rover Company) — AMF-specification Series IIA 109 General Service trucks; stretcher fittings installed by the Australian Army
Manufactured
1961–1972 donors, with 50 of the 66 known vehicles built in 1968–69
Engine type
2.25 L petrol inline-four
Production run
66 vehicles recorded by REMLR (62 census 6028D, 4 census 6028E with winch); no official total published
Country of origin
United Kingdom (vehicle) / Australia (service fitment)
Status
withdrawn; disposals recorded between 1972 and 1991, a small number restored in private hands

Catalogue data

Record kind
Named model
Model line
Series IIA
Wheels
4
Nominal wheelbase
109″

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

Catalogue references

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Registry record updated 2026-09-10T03:45:29.273Z · status: researched