The Perentie – Page 2 – 48 States of Gray

A few weeks had passed since our test drive as the Perentie needed a new MOT before Benita took Ownership.

I suspect that you are ahead of me here, but initial failure on some electrical issues around the new LED lights, a leaky exhaust and a minor oil leak, delayed collection until these could be fixed.

The exhaust parts were not available off of the shelf because of the rare engine/chassis combination, so Tim had a replacement fabricated in Stainless Steel, which does look excellent. With the electrics sorted the MOT was obtained with a “Minor Oil Leak” advisory, or Monitor and Repair as it is now called.

Collection Day, the 3rd of August 2019 soon arrived and we all piled into Benita’s Audi TT (Mk 1 of course) for the trip to Odiham in Hampshire, for me quite a short trip for a car collection.

The “all” was Benita, myself and Bill my Dad. Bill was coming back with me in the Perentie to provide moral support and to give me someone to talk to whilst we were waiting for the Breakdown Service to arrive – Of course, I jest…….

I got the back seat of the TT in which I could just fit. I was lucky it was a short journey as Benita insisted on driving the whole way with the windows open, it was like sitting in a Hurricane!

We soon arrived at Tim’s who provided Coffee and Cake whilst we transferred the money and organised the vehicle transfer of ownership and tax via the DVLA web site – a painless experience I have to say. Much better than walking around with bags of cash and trying to find an open Post Office on a Saturday morning to get the tax – remember those days?

Tim then gave us a tour of the car and pointed out the things that we needed to know and ran us through the other times included in the sale, an air compressor and a custom made additional tank, to name but a few. Time for the key hand over and the journey home.

Benita collecting the Perentie — One Big car, one little owner.

The journey home went smoothly, Tim had left us Diesel in the tank, so no need for the usual search for fuel before the trip. With Benita planning to stop at the local farm shop on the way back for goodies, we actually arrived back in Lymington at about the same time.

It took me at least a nano second to notice the fluid pouring from the front of the car on arrival. A quick inspection, after grabbing some protection for the driveway, was that this was power steering fluid coming from a Banjo bolt under the power steering pump. Whilst under the vehicle, I could not help but notice that the Minor Oil leak, was not that “Minor”! Hey Ho, cars, don’t you love them.

That aside, the car was still drivable, so we pottered around a bit at the weekend to get used to it; it does turn heads…….

More on the leak in my next post.

Bill and Benita toasting the arrival. Note the driveway protection!

Apart from being the fourth largest Lizard on earth and native to Australia that is?

Well, it is the nick name given to the very special Land Rover built for the Australian Military in the late 1980’s.

If this is news to you and you want detail then head over to wiki:

However, here is the “In a nutshell” explanation.

The Australian Military had a ageing fleet of Series Land Rovers in the late 1980’s which needed to be replaced.

The conversation with Land Rover for replacements probably went along the lines of “If you can build us a proper Land Rover” then will will place an order.

So a super tough Land Rover 110 was designed on a specially designed galvanised chassis with a 2 inch lift, this was coupled with an Isuzu 3.9 litre engine, together with a spare wheel that was mounted under the chassis at the rear. Anther specification was that the Perentie could be suspended by one corner from a helicopter with no structural issues – could an Air Portable cope with that?

There were many different versions and modifications as well as a more powerful 6×6 derivative.

After years of service, much longer than the 15 years originally planned, the first Perentie’s were sold off by the Military, via an Auction house in Australia. Some of these have found their way to South Africa and a handful to the UK. However, most are to say the least very basic, no dashboard, windows, sides, roof; depending their military role.

More on the one that we found later………..But in the meantime, here is an image of one looking rather smart!