the New Zealand Army bought 566 Stage 1 V8 Land Rovers which entered service over the period 1982 - 1986. The New Zealand Army standardised on the type, retiring the previous mixture of British- and Australian-built 88" and 109" Series 2 variants. All the V8 vehicles were 109" configuration and were supplied with a plastic-coated canvas canopy with bodywork in Deep Bronze Green. All had 24v electrics with Fitted For Radio (FFR) vehicles having a larger 100 amp generator supplied by Milspec Manufacturing Pty Ltd of Australia. Variants included a hard-top fitted vehicle used for specialist signals tasks (some of which had dual rear wheels for lateral stability to counteract the weight of additional equipment carried). There was also a white-painted 300 TDI conversion of approximately 20 vehicles, including a hard top and locally-devised disc brake conversion, for peacekeeping service with New Zealand's UNPROFOR contingent in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1994 to 1996. The retirement of New Zealand V8 Stage 1 vehicles started from 2000, with the last examples taken out of service in 2006 once sufficient numbers of the Pinzgauer replacement vehicle became available. The vehicles were sold off in a series of disposal auctions, and many are now cherished by private owners in New Zealand. One-ton 109 inch The 1 Ton 109 inch was produced from late 1968 to 1977, covering late IIA and series III Models. It was basically a series-IIB forward control built with a standard 109 in body, featuring 2.6-litre petrol engine, lower ratio transfer gearbox, ENV front and rear axles, (Salisbury front and rear on later series IIIs) though some late IIAs were fitted with ENV axles in front and Salisbury on the rear. Later series IIIs had a Rover type front axle with a supposedly strengthened differential. The chassis frame was unique to the model and featured drop-shackle suspension similar to the military series Land Rovers. 900x16 tyres on deep dish steel wheelrims were a standard feature and these machines were commonly used by utility companies and breakdown/recovery firms. Only 170 IIA and 238 series IIIs (1 Ton) were built for the home market. Export markets had even fewer examples, making this one of the rarest types of Land-Rover ever built. 22 IIA 1-tons were built with 2.25 litre petrol engine for the ministry of defence as fire tenders, known as the TACR1. The series III version was an uprated version of the standard military