Photo: Facebook / Foley SV
On Friday, long-serving Consort to Her Majesty the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, died peacefully at Windsor Castle, two months shy of his 100th birthday. On April 17, he will be laid to rest after a small ceremony at the private chapel on the Castle grounds.
Buckingham Palace has announced that, due to the ongoing health crisis and still standing restrictions, the funeral procession will not be open to the public in any shape or form. Family attendance will be limited to just 30 members. The same statement notes that the Duke’s body will be transported from Windsor Castle to St George’s Chapel “in a specially modified Land Rover he helped to design.”
The Palace notes that the funeral procession will be in keeping with the Duke’s wishes. Never the kind of man to not speak his mind, the Duke would often joke about the arrangements to his own funeral. He once said, “Just stick me in the back of a Land Rover and drive me to Windsor.”
The Palace did not include more details on the vehicle, but the Birmingham Mail reports that the Land Rover in question is the Defender 130 Gun Bus that was commissioned in 2005. Jaguar Land Rover representatives met with the Duke for 45 minutes, and the Gun Bus was the outcome of that extended talk.
The Royal Family and Jaguar Land Rover have a very strong collaboration going back decades. Land Rovers are always used by members of the family when out in official capacity, and the Duke was particularly fond of them. In 2016, he had a Defender 130 Gun Bus conversion by Foley Specialist Vehicles delivered to one of his estates, and it looks like he only drove it there.
The Duke was involved in a serious car accident in January 2019, near Sandringham Estate, the Queen’s private home. He was coming off the estate onto the public road, when he was blinded by the sun and an incoming Kia T-boned his Freelander 2. The Land Rover flipped and, even though he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt (Royals never do, for security reasons), he wasn’t seriously injured.
Months after this crash and well into his 97th year, the Duke gave up driving on public roads, but would still do so on the estate. In fact, hours after the crash, he had Land Rover replacement delivered to that very end.
The Palace notes that the funeral procession will be in keeping with the Duke’s wishes. Never the kind of man to not speak his mind, the Duke would often joke about the arrangements to his own funeral. He once said, “Just stick me in the back of a Land Rover and drive me to Windsor.”
The Palace did not include more details on the vehicle, but the Birmingham Mail reports that the Land Rover in question is the Defender 130 Gun Bus that was commissioned in 2005. Jaguar Land Rover representatives met with the Duke for 45 minutes, and the Gun Bus was the outcome of that extended talk.
The Royal Family and Jaguar Land Rover have a very strong collaboration going back decades. Land Rovers are always used by members of the family when out in official capacity, and the Duke was particularly fond of them. In 2016, he had a Defender 130 Gun Bus conversion by Foley Specialist Vehicles delivered to one of his estates, and it looks like he only drove it there.
The Duke was involved in a serious car accident in January 2019, near Sandringham Estate, the Queen’s private home. He was coming off the estate onto the public road, when he was blinded by the sun and an incoming Kia T-boned his Freelander 2. The Land Rover flipped and, even though he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt (Royals never do, for security reasons), he wasn’t seriously injured.
Months after this crash and well into his 97th year, the Duke gave up driving on public roads, but would still do so on the estate. In fact, hours after the crash, he had Land Rover replacement delivered to that very end.
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