The FRV project begun in 1981-82 as a joint-venture by the private firm Kew Engineering Ltd of Gwelo (now Gweru) to meet a requirement from the Government of Zimbabwe for a home-built light armoured vehicle intended to the export market.
After the prototype was completed, the new Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI) demonstrated the Gazelle to the Kenyan Army, but no orders were ever placed and production did not proceed as expected.
[1] Built on a Mercedes-Benz U1100 Unimog 416 2.5 ton light truck chassis, it consisted of an armoured hull of welded ballistic steel plate incorporating one rear and two side doors.
The overall design is very similar to the French ACMAT TPK 4.2 PSF armoured car, with exception of the glacis which had a small conventional windscreen on the right side and on the left side a projecting, box-type canopy of three framed windows of bullet- and splinter-proof glass to give the driver better lateral vision.
[3] The hull was made of ballistic 10mm mild steel plate; front windscreen and projecting canopy windows had 40mm bullet-proof laminated glass.