We have grown accustomed to various special edition Land Rovers, but back in the 1980’s, they were quite uncommon. In 1983 the Camel Trophy event was in it’s third year, and Dutch Land Rover distributor Austin Rover Nederland B.V. wanted to cash in on it’s growing popularity, probably inspired by the German Trophy Range Rover. They commissioned a limited edition of then new Land Rover 110, the Camel Land Rover One Ten.
It was not based on the actual Camel Trophy event cars, since they still used the 88 and 109 Series 3 cars during the 1983 edition (in Zaire). The first Land Rover 110’s were used in the 1984 event, in Brasil.
The Camel Land Rover One Ten came as a Station Wagon with a V8 engine and the following options:
- Sandglow special paint (LRR631)
- Black heavy duty roofrack with matching ladder at the rear
- 3 meter long lightweight sand ladders
- 4 long range driving lights with mesh lamp guards, mounted at the front of the roofrack
- 4 roofrack mounted Jerry Can brackets, including 4 Jerry Cans
- 1 extra roofrack mounted spare wheel
- Bushbar
- 2 widebeam driving lights, including mesh lamp guards, mounted on the front bumper
- 2 tow/lift hooks
- Mesh guards for both headlights
- Exclusive Camel striping
- Tectyl and ML protection
- A Camel branded cover for the reardoor mounted sparewheel
Price of all these extra’s was 7.200 Dutch guilders, or 3.272 euro’s in today’s money. The standard price for the 110 was 42.236 guilders (19.240 euro’s), making a total of 49.526 guilders. Land Rover offered the car for a discount, at fl. 45.500, or 20.700 euro’s.
I could not discover how many Camel Land Rover One Tens were made, and if any survive, but I do remember seeing one daily in late 1997 during my apprenticeship at a local newspaper in Amstelveen, near Amsterdam. There probably was some sales succes, since the distributor repeated a Camel Trophy themed special edition the year after with the Camel Land Rover Ninety.
And in 1986 they introduced another special, the Land Rover 90 V8 Hurricane. More on that story later.
There is a leaflet of the Camel Land Rover One Ten in my private collection:
