FORUM

GOUKYK AT YOUR SERVICE

I would just like to add my 6d (sixpence) to the Land Rover history in South Africa. I joined the South African Air Force (SAAF) in 1969, straight after school, as an apprentice motor mechanic. The SAAF were using Land Rovers of nearly every available sort in different applications – short-wheelbase, long-wheelbase and Forward-Control types. The latter were converted to mobile workshops, stores and communications offices, signal offices and radar control posts – to name but a few.

I cut my teeth on the repair and maintenance of these and many other old types of vehicles and equipment then still in use in the SAAF. The Land Rovers of those years were very reliable and easy to maintain. There was plenty of space in the engine compartment for two people to work on the engine at the same time.

These vehicles were also used extensively during the Bush War, in what was then S.W.A. and Angola. On several Bush tours