Land Rover Series IIa 109 Amphibious APGP

The Amphibious Series IIa 109", also called the Air Portable General Purpose (APGP) vehicle, was one of several amphibious designs Land Rover tried over the years in response to requests from armies and expeditions. Up to fifty prototypes were built in 1963 for use in landings from the sea.

Design

The base vehicle was a long-wheelbase 'One Ton' Series IIa with the standard engine and gearbox; the changes began just behind the front seats. To make it air-portable, the windscreen folded flat and the rear body was widened so that vehicles could be stacked on top of one another. The whole vehicle was waterproofed for deep wading, with a breather pipe for the engine and a one-way valve in the exhaust. It ran on large 9.00 x 16 tyres without any change to the steering, giving it a wide turning circle. It carried ten soldiers including the driver, on seats running lengthwise whose backs folded down to form a flat load bed.

Buoyancy came from foam inside the chassis and from floats of thin rubberised fabric, whose support brackets slid into tubes in the chassis. A propeller was fitted permanently in the rear propeller shaft, between the differential flange and a shortened shaft. As a result the vehicle was faster in reverse than going forwards, but reversing too fast let water pour in over the tailgate.

Other amphibious Land Rovers

The same source mentions a 1962 Land Rover FV 18601, thought to be based on the forward-control model; it and a 1968 prototype for the Australian Army have separate records.