Enter the dragon
The legendary 6x6 Defender Perentie is named after a big, ferocious Australian lizard – and it also makes a superb expedition vehicle
The 6x6 Defender Perentie makes a great expedition vehicle, as this Aussie example proves
ON LONG overland trips, when your vehicle is your home for weeks, months or even years, space – or lack of it – is a prime consideration. To make your Land Rover your home from home usually means a lot of compromises. To get around the problem, travellers often use roof tents or trailers, or convert Land Rovers that were big to start with – like the increasingly-rare 101 Forward Control, for example.
On the other side of the world, though, would-be adventurers know of an easier way of building their ideal home in an ex-military Land Rover.
There are places on this planet so hostile that 99.9 per cent of living creatures cannot survive. One such place is the arid desert deep in the heart of Australia, hundreds of miles from civilisation. Here, under the baking sun, the few animals that scratch an existence live in fear of a huge and powerful predator that is the nearest thing you will find to the dragons of mythology. It’s a reptile that grows to over eight feet long and can weigh as much as 44 lb (20 kg). Although rare, it thrives in the sort of challenging terrain beloved of off-roaders: craggy outcrops, rock-strewn gorges and scorching sand dunes. Its name is the Perentie.
Little wonder, then, that Project Perentie was the name the Australian Army chose back in the early 1980s for a contest to find the world’s toughest and most capacious 4x4. Motor manufacturers big and brave enough to compete put forward the Jeep AM10, Mercedes-benz 300GD, Unimog and Toyota Land Cruiser, but there was only one winner – the Land Rover Defender. Both 4x4 and 6x6 versions were eventually produced, powered by Isuzu diesel engines (naturally-aspirated and turbocharged), and in either 4x4 or 6x6 configurations. And the Perentie name stuck.
Hundreds were built from 1987 through to 1998, and they served with distinction before decommissioning began in 2013. Soon, enthusiasts were snapping them up – not least because the 6x6 versions offered plenty of scope for camper conversions.
Among them were married couple Ian and Patricia Belcher, who live in Forrest Beach, a small town situated between Townsville and Cairns, in North Queensland. Aged 60 and 55, respectively, they decided to go on a great adventure that would involve a Perentie 6x6. Ian takes up the story: “Trish and I have always enjoyed travel and did a fair amount when we were younger, but we anchored up in Forrest Beach when
the eldest of our three children reached school age. Twenty years later, they had all left and we said ‘bugger this, let’s get back on the road’.
“The Silk Road has always fascinated me, and my wife had always wanted to go to China – mainly for the food, I think – so we started to plan an overland driving trip from Australia to the UK. First things first, we decided on a rough route and the countries we would go through.
“Next, what vehicle we would need to get us there, and how to kit it out. Being young at heart we wanted to do a fair amount of off-road driving, but being old in body we still wanted a fair amount of comfort.
“Our budget would not stretch to a fancy Unimog or the likes, so it quickly got down to two choices: Land Rover or Land Cruiser. Being British, it just had to be a Land Rover. I myself had an old Series II back in 1978 and loved the machine. Being a young lad at the time, all my friends were going around in Cortina 1600Es or Triumph Dolomite Sprints, so the old Series II couldn’t be mistaken and exuded a certain style.
“We also knew we would have a chance of picking up an ex-army Perentie 6x6 ambulance. Why a Perentie? Well, it would go anywhere and once in 6x6 mode its off-road performance was exceptional. It would also be large enough to live in comfortably.
“On our third attempt we purchased one at a government auction in Sydney. We flew down to pick it up and drove it back complete with stretchers, blood pumps and, believe it or not, flashing lights and siren. The siren got used every time the roads were empty – I admit we were like a couple of kids, really!
“Although a lot of the work was undertaken by myself, it would not have been possible without the knowledge and know-how of Dave from Marine Maintenance. Dave, a Pommy himself, originally heralding from Wakefield, has a few Land Rovers of his own. Our eventual trip would never have gone so smoothly without him.
“Then started the process of converting it to a home we were happy to spend a year in. The 6x6 ambulance was not a light machine, weighing in at over 5 tonnes. We both have HGV licences, but for registration purposes we needed to get it below 4.5 tonnes. So we stripped out all the fittings – for example the stretchers were heavy-gauge metal.
“The back door was a one-piece fibreglass affair and weighed a fair amount on its own. We wanted to change this anyway, because in cold countries or at altitude you would lose all your heat when opening. This got replaced with an aluminium panel, and a motor home door fitted.
“All the emergency gear in the back worked off 24 volts, powered by a huge generator fitted beside the Isuzu 3.9-litre turbo diesel engine. We got rid of the generator and all fittings including a huge, old-fashioned air con. A large roof rack above the cab also went. All the military fittings like machine gun holders and can’t-see-me-lights were next.
“Stripping out the rear fibreglass shell and removing the armour plating from the floor really helped. The 50 metres of winch wire was replaced with Dyneema synthetic rope – another weight saving.
“We were now well below 4 tonnes and started to rebuild. I suffer from sleep apnea, so a priority was to always have enough power available. We opted on a 200ah lithium LIFEPO4 battery with 500 watts of solar on the roof going through a redarc battery management system. This was topof-the-range stuff and probably a bit of overkill, but it never let us down once.
“We needed sufficient fuel capacity, so a third tank was fitted and, along with the standard two, gave us over 200 litres capacity. We never got close to running out, but we did rupture one in Kyrgyzstan on a rather adventurous track. This was fixed once we got back to Bishkek.
“Not much work was done to the engine, apart from a service. There are no fancy electrical gadgets or computers that could go wrong, putting you into go-slow mode, plus I could then do all servicing and bits and pieces myself. But we had a special stainless steel snorkel fitted in an attempt to get more air into the engine at altitude.
“It had to be repainted, because looking like an army vehicle was probably not such a good idea where we were going. I stripped it down but got it professionally resprayed in white.
“A domestic air con unit was installed, plus microwave, domestic fridge-freezer and a Webasto diesel heater for
“The children had all left so we said ‘ bugger this, let’s get back on the road”
“The siren got used every time the roads were empty – we were like kids”
water and heating. The Webasto was plumbed in to the engine as well, which proved a very good move; when we were camped out at altitude for a few days and it was well below freezing, with a turn of a switch it pumped hot water through the block and the engine roared into life straight away.
“The Perentie has permanent four-wheel drive with an optional six-wheel when the PTO is engaged coming off a completely separate drive shaft. I fixed freewheeling hubs to the back wheels to reduce unnecessary wear to the shaft and rear diff.
“I cut the back off the cab and made a walk-through to the living area. An awning was made to go round the back and one side. When all was finished, another nervous trip to the weighbridge and it came in at 4.4 tonnes. After a few weekends travelling and sleeping in the Landy around our local area, we were ready to plan the trip.
“We opted to ship to Cambodia. Getting it into a container was our next task, as it didn’t fit. We ended up taking the air con off the roof, removing the wheels and winching it in on some old rims. Meanwhile, we flew to Phnom Penh and met the boat four weeks later – then the trip began.”
You can find full details of the Belchers’ trip on their excellent blog at australiatotheuk.wordpress.com. There’s not room to tell the full story here, but here’s the list of countries they went through:
Cambodia (one month), Laos (one month), China (one month), Mongolia (six weeks), Russia and Siberia (one month), Kazakhstan (one month), Kyrgystan (three weeks), Tajikistan (three weeks), Uzbekistan (two weeks), across the Caspian Sea (one week), Azerbaijan (two weeks), Georgia (two weeks), Turkey (six weeks), Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Holland, Belgium and France to the UK (six weeks).
“All in all, just short of one year,” says Ian. “We spent many days out the back of I-don’t-know-where after crossing rivers and crawling up mountains. We had to rescue three other stranded vehicles at different times, pulling them out of rivers with our winch
“As I mentioned earlier, both my wife and myself travelled extensively pre-kids, including going around Australia. But it’s fair to say we have never done anything as daring and been so far off-road before.
“Trish is looking forward to getting home now and getting a bit of normality back into our lives. But I think six months will be enough for her and she will be champing at the bit again. I resume work very soon as the bank balance tells me I have to, but I am keen for the next adventure. So much so that we have decided to sell the Perentie and purchase two motor bikes and this time next year we will be looking to travel around New Zealand on them.
“This trip has probably proved we are suited as a couple. Living on top of each other for a year is quite daunting, but with Trisha’s willingness to help out mechanically, and mine domestically, we seem to have coped very well. Being able to take the mickey out of each other without getting offended is probably the biggest thing.”