An ex-military CAV 100 Snatch armoured Land Rover sold commercially to a news organisation and run as a protected press vehicle in Macedonia at the height of the 2001 insurgency: the composite-armoured Defender 110 in plain white with TV in large black letters on its doors, body sides and rear.
BASE VEHICLEDefender 110BUILT BYNP AerospaceIN SERVICE1992OPERATED INUnited Kingdom, North MacedoniaPRODUCTIONUnknownLAYOUT4 wheels · 110″
The record
Courtaulds' CAV 100 composite-armoured body on the Defender 110 chassis was bought by the British Army in 1992 as the Snatch for Northern Ireland and served on for a quarter of a century, from Bosnia in 1993 to 3 PARA's deployment to Sarajevo on Exercise QUICK RESPONSE in 2018. The CAV 100 was also sold commercially to news organisations, which needed protected transport for camera crews in conflict zones. Bob Morrison photographed a group of them in Macedonia at the height of the 2001 insurgency between the security forces and ethnic-Albanian NLA fighters: ex-military vehicles repainted white, stripped of their military fittings, wearing British registrations and marked TV in large black letters so that both sides could recognise them as press. Which broadcasters ran them, and how many, is not stated in the source.
The registry's model is its Snatch in white with the Army's ECM boxes, aerials and roof dome removed, white wheels and the TV lettering and plate from the photograph.
Land Rover (Defender 110 chassis); CAV 100 composite armoured body by Courtaulds / NP Aerospace
MODIFIER / COACHBUILDEREx-military, repainted and marked for press use (converter not recorded)
MANUFACTUREDCAV 100 Snatch built from 1992; in press use by 2001
ENGINELand Rover 200 Tdi / 300 Tdi 2.5 L turbo-diesel (Snatch of the period; not stated in the source)Land Rover 200Tdi
PRODUCTION RUNUnknown — a handful sold commercially to news organisations
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INUnited Kingdom, North Macedonia
STATUSunknown
PROTECTIONCAV 100 composite armoured body
MARKINGSWhite with black TV lettering on doors, sides and rear
SEENMacedonia, 2001 insurgency
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINEDefender
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE110″
CATEGORYSpecial · Commercial
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.
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
Where it was
GB United Kingdom1992–2000 · British Army, then soldMK North Macedonia2001 · Press vehicle during the insurgency
