A retired mountain rescue vehicle, once among the UK’s oldest in service, has been moved to the country’s largest Land Rover museum.

Dart 51, known as Ada, was previously owned by the North Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team (NDSART) and was transferred earlier this year to the Dunsfold Collection, a charitable trust focused on preserving Land Rover history.

The founding trustee and museum curator of the Dunsfold Collection Philip Bashall, said: “We are delighted to welcome this very special Defender to Dunsfold, and it’s wonderful to see another historically important Land Rover joining the collection, especially one that has spent its entire life supporting the incredible volunteers in two of the country’s mountain rescue teams.”

After 32 years of service—16 with the Langdale Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team and 16 with NDSART—Ada was retired late last year. Initially, she was to be sold at auction without her mountain rescue markings, but the Dunsfold Collection approached the team to ask whether it could take her as a historical example of a mountain rescue Land Rover.

NDSART chair James Watts, said: “As a team, we decided that Ada, after 32 years of service in mountain rescue, was no longer suitable for frontline emergency service, so we needed to find a new home for her. We were so delighted to be able to transfer her to the care of the Dunsfold Collection, who will ensure that she can tell the story of how she, and Land Rover Defenders like her, continue to serve mountain rescue across the country.”

During her service, Ada attended 400 callouts, supported multiple Ten Tors events, coordinated civilian evacuations after the discovery of unexploded WW2 bombs in Exeter and Plymouth, and assisted with evacuations and welfare checks during the 2018 Beast from the East storm.