Swiss role for Land Rover
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LAND ROVER is preparing to supply the Swiss Army with around 4,000 vehicles over the next 11 years.
The contract is subject to Swiss parliamentary approval but it seems almost certain to be finalised later this year.
Six hundred, four-cylinder petrol engined Land Rover One Tens with automatic transmissions will be supplied next year, for about Sw Fr35m (£11.3m), and about 300 vehicles a year will be delivered over the following ten years. The Swiss Army is re-equipping its entire fleet which currently comprises mainly American built Willys Jeeps, and Unimogs.
Land Rover won the contract, after two years of evaluation trials, in the face of stiff competition from at least 12 other manufacturers.
The closest rival was probably Mercedes with its Gelandewagen, built by Steyr-Daimler-Puch in Austria, and it is thought that the One Ten beat this model chiefly on price.
Military business accounts for about 60 per cent of Land Rover's total annual production which, including Range Rovers, last year fell to 40,000 units from the previous year's 52,000.
Twenty eight thousand Land Rovers were built last year with deliveries being made to 39 armies around the world. Recent new orders have come from the Dutch Army and Air Force and a Far Eastern Army .