Trail by Fire Defender 110

History

Since 2010 the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Land Rover Bursary has lent a fully equipped Defender 110 each year to an expedition using it for geographical research and public engagement; the 2013 Pole of Cold team drove theirs to the coldest inhabited place on Earth in Siberia, returning it snow-caked to Land Rover in March 2014, and the vehicles feature in the Land Rover Heritage Collection's account of far-flung Defenders. The 2015 bursary went to Trail by Fire, a team of volcanologists who drove the Defender along the Andean volcanic arc through Peru and Chile, using it as a mobile laboratory to measure gas emissions from a chain of active volcanoes with drones and spectrometers. The bursary Defenders shared a specification: red 110 with snorkel, roof rack and expedition boxes, spot lamps, winch and RGS and Land Rover livery. Trail by Fire's own vehicle is not pictured in the source, which shows the Pole of Cold Defender returning from Siberia.

The registry's model follows the queue's brief: a red Defender 110 hard top rather than a station wagon, with snorkel, spot lamps, a roof rack of aluminium boxes that can be released as cargo, expedition lettering and roundels, and snow drifted over the bonnet, wings, roof, boxes, sills and bumper.

Imagery

Registry record

Manufacturer

Land Rover (Defender 110 hard top, 2.2 L Puma)

Manufactured

2015 RGS Land Rover Bursary vehicle

Modifier / coachbuilder

Land Rover / Royal Geographical Society (bursary expedition fit)

Engine type

Ford/Land Rover 2.2 L Puma turbo-diesel (Defender of 2015; not stated in the source)

Production run

1 (one bursary vehicle per year)

Country of origin

United Kingdom

Operated in

United Kingdom

Status

unknown

Catalogue data

Record kind

Named model

Model line

Defender

Wheels

4

Nominal wheelbase

110″

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

• To far-flung places and back again — Land Rover Heritage Collection (the RGS Land Rover Bursary Defenders, including the Pole of Cold expedition's return in 2014) ↗ — Land Rover Heritage Collection (accessed 2026-09-11)

Catalogue references

• https://www.lrheritagecollection.org.uk/to-far-flung-places-and-back-again/ https://www.lrheritagecollection.org.uk/to-far-flung-places-and-back-again/ ↗