Outback 4×4 Canvas

History

With 1,222 built plus 314 winch-equipped examples, it was the single most numerous Outback body — over half of all 3,023 4×4s.

REMLR describes it flatly as 'the basic version', used by the greatest variety of units in the Army and the general workhorse for most of them: 1,000 kg of cargo (900 kg once a winch was fitted), or six troops in the tray plus two in the cab, and a trailer of up to 900 kg behind. Small details separate it from its stablemates. Externally the tray is clean: no half-height scooped tailgate, no antenna mounts through the side panels, no battery-box access doors — those belong to the Fitted For Radio version (see `perentie-ffr`). Above the cab sits a tubular rack that both carries kit and gives the crew some protection, and the vehicles rode on Olympic Steeltrek tyres with the spare stowed beneath the rear of the tray rather than on the bonnet or door. The numbers make the point about how central this body was. Wikipedia's Outback variant table gives 1,222 GS utilities and 314 GS with winch — 1,536 vehicles, just over half of the 3,023 4×4s built. REMLR's independently compiled ARN register lists 1,211 and 240 under the same two nomenclatures, close on the plain trucks and noticeably short on the winch version; neither figure should be treated as final, and the registry records both. One production detail belongs to this variant more than any other. Only from 48-034 were disruptive-pattern canopies fitted, with the earlier ones retrofitted during service. Early canvas-bodied GS Perenties are therefore the vehicles most likely to be seen in the fleet's original all-olive-drab appearance, before Auscam became the official scheme across the whole green fleet in the 1990s. Deliveries began in August 1987 and the plant closed on 30 September 1992.