AA Scottish Highland Patrol Land Rover Series I 88-inch TLE 883: golden yellow truck cab with khaki canvas tilt, black-masked front wings, bonnet spare and a HIGHLAND PATROL roof board, one of the Land Rovers that by 1958 had helped over 160,000 members on remote Highland roads in five years.
BASE VEHICLESeries I 88″BUILT BYRover Company (Land Rover Series I 88-inch)IN SERVICE1956–58OPERATED INUnited KingdomPRODUCTIONunknownLAYOUT4 wheels · 88″
The record
The Automobile Association started its Scottish Highland Patrols in the early 1950s to cover the long, empty roads north of the Great Glen, where a breakdown could leave a member stranded for hours. Land Rovers were the obvious choice — they could tow a car off a single-track road, carry fuel and spares, and keep going through Highland winters — and by 1958 the AA reckoned the patrols had helped more than 160,000 members in five years. TLE 883 is a Series I 88-inch in the AA's golden yellow with the black-painted front wing sides that kept the mud from showing, a truck cab with a canvas tilt over the rear body, the spare on the bonnet and a HIGHLAND PATROL board topped by the AA badge on the cab roof.
The Oxford Diecast 1:43 model 43LAN188025 and its product photographs, together with the AA's own history of its first ten years of Land Rovers, are the references: yellow body with black wing sides, khaki tilt, AA badges on both doors and the left wing front, the TLE 883 plate on the right wing front, a yellow whip aerial behind the cab and black steel wheels. The registry model reproduces that vehicle in the Breakdown group; the exact number of Highland Patrol Land Rovers is not recorded in the sources.
Specification
MANUFACTURERRover Company (Land Rover Series I 88-inch)
MODIFIER / COACHBUILDERThe Automobile Association (patrol fit and livery)
MANUFACTUREDSeries I 88-inch (1956–58); TLE registration
ENGINERover 2.0 L inlet-over-exhaust petrol
PRODUCTION RUNunknown (a fleet of AA Highland Patrol Land Rovers)
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INUnited Kingdom
STATUSunknown
REGISTRATIONTLE 883
FITTINGSBonnet spare, HIGHLAND PATROL roof board, canvas tilt, radio aerial
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINESeries I
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE88″
CATEGORYSpecial · Breakdown
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.
Renders & references
Front three-quarterRegistry renderThree-quarterRegistry renderSideRegistry renderRearRegistry renderFrontRegistry renderOxford Diecast model of TLE 883, front three-quarter — a reference for this model; linked only.Oxford Diecast ↗Nearside view of the Oxford Diecast model; linked only.Oxford Diecast ↗
Where it was
GB United Kingdom1957–1970 · AA Scottish Highland Patrol