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Whilst the history of the military Perentie 6x6 is fairly well know, the history of the Civilian 6x6 is somewhat clouded, and often forgotten. The fact of the matter is, without one, the other would not have existed, so REMLR decided it was time to follow up the history of these interesting vehicles. The tender for Project Perentie required that vehicles offered were not prototypes, but derivatives of Commercially available vehicles. Accordingly, Leyland / JRA set about making a 6x6 for the civilian market to be sold before the trials were completed in order to comply with that specification. For the same reason, the Mercedes Gwagen and the Jeep J10 appeared at the same time. When neither vehicle was chosen their respective models disappeared from the australian civilian market. Likewise in 2010 when the Gwagen was chosen to replace some land rovers, they became available to the civilian market once more. It's not known precisely how many 110 6x6 units were built, thoughts range from a mere 20 up to 100. So as we find them, or information about them, we will add that information here. The ones that were built were of similar specification to the 6x6 units trailed by the Army. Production Army 6x6 vehicles had a number of changes to the design.
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Built by Austral for ESSO Petroleum, this 3.5L V8 Petrol was painted in a distinctive Yellow. IT features a parge water canon and the name Hawk marked on the sides. |
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This vehicle appeared in e-bay with 60,000 km on the clock and engine no 658807. This vehicle was originally sold to National Parks and Wildlife in South Australia. This appears to be a fairly standard unit, although it has a hydraulic tipper tray fitted. This vehicle is now on a farm in Bigga near Crookwell in NSW |
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 Photo from E-Bay |
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 Copyright Karl Bossard |
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 Copyright Glenn Smith. Taken at LROC Espo 2009 |
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This unit was sold direct to the Lenswood & Forest Range CFS in SA, circa June 1985 It started life as a Fire Fighting unit before being bought by Dave Benson in Tasmania where it was stripped of it's equipment and sold as a cab chassis to somebody in Cooktown, who collected it and drove it home as it is seen in these photos. |
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This vehicle appeared for sale on Carsales.com.au in 2011(For only $5000?) and only appeared for sale for a couple of days before being purchased. A tidy looking conversion if you ask me! Originally this vehicle, along with five others were used by the Bureau of Mineralogy painted white with blue canopies and split rims. Originally the number plates on this vehicle would have been Commonwealth 'Z' Plates. This was purchased by Garrick Lambert who has plans to convert it into a camper. |
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 Original Configuration Copyright Glenn Smith |
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This unit has been photographed at Cooma in 1998 by at least one person. In fact all of these photos may have been taken at that event. It appears to be a standard unit, except that it appears that it may have a wide track front axle. The windscreen appears to be a Series 3 type, as do the doors. Is this a prototype of some sort? More recent infromation from the owner Eric Shingles indicate that it was purchased new from Arthur Garthon Land Rover in Sydney around Feb 1987. It was burnt out Eric purchased it, and he re cab’ed it with series’ Land Rover panels. |
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 Copyright: Lloyd Allison |
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This vehicle was first registered as a coach (bus) on 27/04/90 to Campbells Coaches, Mount Isa. It is now owned by Film Industry Gear who were intending to convert it to a camera boom vehicle to shoot the Mad Max remake / sequal at Broken Hill. |
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 Gopyright Film Industry Gear |
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This vehicle appears to have undergone significant modification from a standard vehicle. Seen for sale on Farm Machinery Sales.com.au in 2010 at Railton Tasmania. Below is the description with the sale:
It is believed this vehicle was first sold to Randwick Council. |
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 The vehicle in service with Randwick Council in it's original configuration. |
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This vehicle appeared on e-bay in 2008 as a project underway. Unfortunately I didn't save copies of all of the photos. It appears they were trying to make a large station wagon, but never finished. The truth is that the vehicle actually started out as a tourist bus in darwin in the eighties. The company that operated the vehicle had two matching vehicles. |
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 E-Bay 2008 |
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 Copyright Glenn Smith |
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 Copyright Glenn Smith |
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This unit belonging to Modern Motors, Dungog appears to still earn it's keep as a working vehicle. |
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 Copyright Dennis McLaughlin |
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 Copyright Dennis McLaughlin |
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These photos are of vehicles we know nothing further about, and only have 1 or 2 photos of showing little detail. If a photo is yours, and not credited, let us know so that we can correct that oversight or omission. |
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 This photo was taken at the land rover factory, with the Land Rover development vehicle in the background. The unique dual cab in the foreground was built for a mining company at broken hill for underground work. To date it has not been seen since leaving the factory. |
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 Copyright Mark Curby |
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