The record
The first London–Sydney Marathon of November–December 1968 ran 10,373 miles from Crystal Palace to Sydney through eleven countries, with the P&O liner Chusan carrying the cars from Bombay to Fremantle. Among the 98 starters was a Land Rover entered by a four-man crew from the 17th/21st Lancers as car 99, listed in the results as a 'Land Rover 2WD'; it was classified 49th of 56 finishers.
Three photographs establish the car. A British Pathé newsreel frame and a press photograph at the Crystal Palace start (offered on eBay) show a blue long-wheelbase Series IIA station wagon with the headlamps still in the grille panel, registration FPP 999G on a pre-1973 black plate centred under the grille, a pale safari roof carrying a rack with a rolled tilt, a white board over the windscreen lettered LONDON–SYDNEY MARATHON, a Meteor Works/Marshall-pattern curved bumper guard with lamp pods at each end and three spotlamps behind the centre of the bumper, spotlights on the windscreen pillars, round pillar-mounted mirrors, the bonnet ventilator flaps lettered TWO WHEEL and DRIVE, and a white rally plate with a black 99 on each front door. An Autopics photograph from the Australian leg shows the five-door body from the side, LONDON–SYDNEY MARATHON and 17–21 LANCERS along the rear body, and sponsor decals on the rear quarter. The model follows those photographs; the sponsor decals are not reproduced.
The crew's names and the car's later fate have not been established from the sources fetched.
