Land Rover Llama Forward Control Prototype.

Land Rover have had at least four attempts at building a forward control (FC) four wheel drive vehicle: (i) one based on the Land Rover SIIA 109" (later revised to FC SIIB 110" wheel-base), (ii) the SMOMOT prototype (covered in the book by the Slavins and Mackie), (iii) the military FC101 and (iv) the Llama (right).

The SIIA/SIIB FC was the only FC sold to the general public and cannot be counted a real success being over-weight and under-powered. The FC101 was only ever sold to the armed forces and is very capable with its purpose-built chassis, the 3.5L V8 and full-time 4WD, but is otherwise very crude.

The Llama was to be a "civilised" FC. It had the 3.5L V8, the 5-speed Land Rover 110 transmission of the day, and coil springs. The interior is luxurious compared to that of the FC101. It even looks the part with a nice rounded fibre-glass cab in contrast to the FC101's slab-sided sheet metal. A number of Llama prototypes were built around 1985 / 1986 but the project was discontinued for some reason.

The pictured vehicle is now at BMIHT (Gaydon).

Go to the BMIHT or FC101 pages

Picture #2 by Tony Luckwill LROEC