This Land Rover Is A Real Life Mad Max Truck For A World Fighting Over Diesel

One of the most significant films in Australian cinema, The Road Warrior (1981) begins with a long narration that handily condenses the events of the previous film, Mad Max (1979), and provides an explanation of what took place before it. An old man’s voice tells of a world war that destroyed the Western way of life, and how everything was set in motion by an oil crisis.

“My life fades. A vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams, this wasted land, but most of all, I remember the Road Warrior. The man we called Max. To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time. When the world was powered by the black fuel. And the desserts sprouted great cites of pipes and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two might warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They’d built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked, and talked, and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche.”

Against this apocalyptic backdrop and currently soaring diesel prices, I’m viewing an ad for a very special Land Rover, fuelled by Mad Max nostalgia.

The Land Rover Perentie 110 6×6 LRPV is a long-wheelbase, six-wheel, camouflage, open-top, 10,000-lb beige dream machine built for the Australian Defence Force in the 1990s. It was designed for long-range reconnaissance tasks, as its LRPV name stood for Long Range Patrol Vehicle. Compared to a regular-issue, British-built Land Rover Series or Defender, it’s a similar weird Australia-specific development as any of the animals you see there. There wasn’t a Land Rover in any of the Mad Max movies, but maybe there should have been.

The “Perentie” name itself, as well as being the name of a big lizard, stands for Australian-built Land Rovers with Isuzu engines. There were also regular 4×4 Perenties, designed to replace old Series II and III Land Rovers in Australian military use and chosen over ‘80s competitors such as the Mercedes G-Class and the Toyota Land Cruisers of the time, but the 6×6 LRPV was a special long-body version, and always turbocharged. It’s also incredibly rare.

Everything about this modified Defender was built for crossing the vast nothingness that’s right there in the middle of Australia, and it would only carry a crew of three (as well as guns and a motorbike). Everything else is fuel, steel and rough road capability, with the idea that the vehicle would best suit the Special Air Services Regiment and the Northern Territory, from Darwin to Townsville in QLD.

Perenties were also used on peacekeeping missions from the 1990s to the 2010s, in Rwanda, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan among other locations. The LRPV saw action outside Australia, too.

With its 300-liter (79.25 gallon) main fuel tank and a 50-liter (13.2 gallon) auxiliary tank, the LRPV has a range of 1600 km (1000 miles), and it does 95 km/h (59 mph). The range, then, is based on a fuel consumption of 18.75 litres per 100km or 12.5 mpg: not great, but you try hypermiling when your vehicle is a 10,000 lb six-wheel-drive brick with 92 and a half gallons of diesel fuel on board. Then again, the vehicle does lighten significantly towards the end of the journey.

The weight isn’t exaggerated. The Registry of Ex-Military Land Rovers (REMLR) says the LRPV weighs 3800kg (8,377 lbs.) unladen, and with a crew of three onboard, with all the kit and fuel, the total comes to 4840 kg (10,670 lbs.). Now, note that the engine is a 120-horsepower turbodiesel, and reaching the aforementioned 59mph cruise speed probably takes a good while.

Reliable Isuzu Powerplant

An old and worn-out saying goes that “If you want to go into the bush, take a Land Rover. If you want to come back, buy a Toyota.” As for the Perentie, they met halfway: instead of a Rover diesel, the powerplant was a 3.9-liter Isuzu engine.

Perentie production began in Australia’s New South Wales in 1987, and a year earlier in 1986, Land Rover had just brought its first production turbodiesel to the market, a 2.5-liter unit called Diesel Turbo (19J). The earliest 19J engines had various issues, from failing bearings to cracking blocks, and it seems the cooling system wasn’t initially up to the task, but the engine design was improved towards its 1989 replacement with the 200Tdi engine, which arrived in time for the new Discovery.

However, Australian market Land Rovers had already gotten the Isuzu 3.9-liter diesel in the early 1980s, and since that was an established, reliable and durable engine, not to mention a lot larger in displacement, no other powerplant was likely considered for the LRPV. Originally, Isuzu’s four-cylinder B-series diesel engines dated back to the late 1960s, with the 4BD1 direct-injection diesel introduced in 1979 for Isuzu’s medium-duty trucks. While it is a bit big for a four-banger, Isuzu did also make five-liter four-cylinder diesels. In non-turbocharged form, the engine made 97 horsepower, and as a turbodiesel, 120 hp; the 1989-on engines, such as the ones fitted in the LRPV, are said to run smoother and favored for swaps. In the LRPV, the unit was paired with the LT95A heavy-duty four-speed manual gearbox, specially designed for the Perenties, and the rear differential was a Salisbury 8HA.

Some Land Rover enthusiasts have also considered swapping the Isuzu turbodiesel into a Discovery. Technically, because the first Land Rover Discovery was also sold as the Honda Crossroad, putting that engine into one of those would create a Crossroad that would be as reliable as the badge on it, at least when it comes to the engine.

The Diff Is Painted White For A Reason

Arksen’s overlanding blog mentions that the Perentie also featured an innovative convoy driving system for night-time driving: there was a small light mounted deep down, and it was directed to light the white-painted back plate of the rear didifferential of the Land Rover in front. I’m just hoping the brakes on these things were good enough to stop when the diff in front suddenly came to a halt.

Now, you’re probably asking, “How can I get my hands on one of these?” You’re in luck, as there’s a little-used example currently being auctioned on Collecting Cars, LRPV and all.

There were nearly 4,000 Perenties built, but only 30 at most were LRPV 6×6. A single left-hand-drive prototype was built, but the rest are LHD, just like the Collecting Cars LRPV. The sporty three-spoke Momo steering wheel is a nice touch.

The vehicle here has just 4,600 km (2,900 miles) on the clock, runs and drives, and it’s in extremely good condition for an ex-military vehicle with just a few dents to show for itself. It took a minute for me to realize what on earth the round things on the side were, but they are spare tires covered with canvas. As for other equipment, there’s a lot of period-correct stuff included:

Accompanied by a range of original military fit-out accessories, including original ammunition boxes, camouflage mesh/netting, vehicle covers, and other genuine Australian Army accessories and equipment.

Bidding ends tomorrow, and at the moment the LRPV’s been bid to over 81k AUD, or over $58,000. For something this rare, it might well be justified – and you know you’ll never get range anxiety. As long as there’s enough diesel available to fill the tanks.

All images: Collecting Cars