The short-wheelbase Wolf built to be flown: a Defender 90 Wolf TUL with canvas tilt, lifting fittings and a high side-mounted spare, designed to be slung beneath a helicopter for delivery to places without roads — supplied, a dealer's listing notes, in only small numbers.
The Lightweight of 1968 had been narrowed and stripped so a Wessex could lift it. By the Wolf era the helicopters were Pumas and Chinooks and the problem had eased, but the requirement had not gone away, and the Wolf programme included a 90 in air-portable form: the TUL — Truck Utility Light — with lifting fittings on the body for an underslung load, a canvas tilt over the rear, and the spare mounted high on the side out of the way of the load bed.
A surviving example offered for sale carries the standard Wolf specification: the 2.5-litre 300 Tdi, 24-volt electrics and NATO tow hitch, with an internal roll-over protection system, and later civilian upgrades of extra roll-over protection, vibration and acoustic matting and wax injection. The seller's account is that only a small number of the type were supplied, and that this was the only one then available — consistent with a specialised variant of a general-purpose fleet.
No production figure or unit allocation is published in the sources consulted. The base Wolf order of January 1996 covered around 8,000 vehicles in TUL and TUM forms.
Specification
MANUFACTURERLand Rover
MANUFACTUREDWolf TUL production from the 1996 order
ENGINE2.5 L (2,495 cc) 300 Tdi intercooled turbodiesel inline-four, c. 111 bhp, R380 five-speed gearbox
PRODUCTION RUNUnknown — "only a small number" supplied, per a dealer's listing
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INUnited Kingdom
STATUSwithdrawn
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINEDefender
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE90″
CATEGORYMilitary · UK
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 renderPhotographL Jackson & Co ↗PhotographL Jackson & Co ↗
Where it was
GB United Kingdom1997–2020
BuiltLand Rover, Lode Lane, SolihullUnited Kingdom · 1996 →52.43, -1.78