NAMED MODELMilitary · Czech RepublicUnited Kingdom
Czech Army Defender 90
The short-wheelbase Czech paratroop Defender: a 300 Tdi Defender 90 soft top with a windowed canopy, two-piece doors and a bonnet spare, in NATO IRR green with Czech roundels — the 110's companion in the airborne units' Land Rover fleet.
The Czech Army's military Land Rovers arrived at the end of the 1990s, bought for formations committed to international operations and above all for Kosovo, where Czech troops served under British command. The 90 is the short-wheelbase half of that purchase, used alongside the eight-seat 110 soft tops by the Czech paratroop units.
Mechanically it is the same vehicle as its longer sibling: the 300 Tdi, the 2.5-litre turbocharged four of 111 bhp built between 1994 and the Td5's arrival in 1998 — an engine ahead of the naturally aspirated diesels in contemporary British pre-Wolf Land Rovers. Some later Czech purchases were 2000 model-year Defenders with the five-cylinder Td5.
Both 90s and 110s were photographed as soft tops with Czech airborne units, and both were also run as station wagons; a D90 station wagon served as a staff vehicle. The soft-top equipment is common across the fleet — a canopy with large rectangular side windows, two-piece front doors, a side-hinged tailgate, bull bar, military bumperettes and the spare carried on the bonnet — and the finish is NATO infrared-reflective green with the national flag, roundels and PFOR stencils.
No fleet quantity has been published for either wheelbase, and this record represents the type rather than an individual documented vehicle.
Specification
MANUFACTURERLand Rover
MANUFACTUREDProcured from the late 1990s — 300 Tdi vehicles from 1994–1998 production, plus some 2000 model-year Td5s
ENGINE2.5 L 300 Tdi turbodiesel inline-four (111 bhp); later Czech purchases 2.5 L Td5 inline-five
PRODUCTION RUNUnknown — no fleet figure published
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INCzech Republic
STATUSin service
OPERATORCzech Armed Forces
BODY90 canvas top
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINEDefender
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE90″
CATEGORYMilitary · Czech Republic
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.
Variants & colours
Factory colours
NATO Green (IRR)
Czech Army Green
Codes on hover. Hex values are representative approximations of period paint unless a source states a measured value.
Imagery
No published image yetA rendering impression or a free-licence photograph will appear here once one is published — the sources below link to photographs elsewhere