Weird Wednesday: The Judge Dredd Landy

By Wes Whitworth 3 Min Read

For this Weird Wednesday, we bring you an FC101 Landy that featured in the 90s classic (maybe ‘cheesy’ classic) Judge Dredd.

Coming straight outta the 90s, we bring you the Judge Dredd Landy. This thing was a staple throughout the movie, with ‘City Cabs’ and random street-cars (read: four-wheel drives) based around this thing… in a word, this thing is absolutely AWESOME… if a little weird.

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So how did it all come about? Well, the designer of the vehicle (initial sketches were supplied by David Woodhouse – the Senior Designer at Land Rover) was given the brief of “Taxi cabs of the future, operating in ‘Mega City One’ (think mega New York City) should be able to carry six passengers, safely, through the city’s hostile environment; a fortress on wheels”. Thus you’ll notice no windows in the passenger compartment, a super-angular design, and it just screams big, angry fortress on wheels, right?

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The ‘City Cab’ with the original FC101 it was built from next to it.

The initial vehicle was based around the original Land Rover Forward Control FC101, which was a cab-over design Land Rover made between 1972 and 1978 for the British Army. It was a very basic vehicle (as most designed for military use are), which was fitted with the Rover 3.5-litre carburettor V8 donk, pushing out a stonking 87kW of fury, and a just-enough torque to pull the skin off a custard pudding 230Nm. Now, back in 1995 when the film was first released, these things looked proper science fiction. Come to think of it, they still look proper science fiction, some 25 years on.

Land Rover built 31 full-size, driveable models, which you’ll see throughout the movie rolling slowly (perhaps top speed for the old darlin’) around the wet, dystopian looking cityscape in the movie. However, instead of having a fully armoured body on the FC101 they were just fibreglass bodies mounted over the solid chassis. There are still examples intact around the world that you can see for yourself in the metal.

Landy Judge Dredd
We think the jet engine may be aftermarket?

Something worth noting is that judging by the photos we’ve been able to get a hold of, you can almost see a likeness from a VW Kombi mated with a bumblebee in this Judge Dredd Landy… possible future Transformers movie prop, anyone? Time will tell…

 


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