The modified ambulance will be travelling through the South as part of a campaign for the new Dunedin hospital, which Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich is now rebranding as the "southern region hospital".
It comes after the government’s announcement it would downsize the project or retrofit the existing Dunedin Hospital.
At the end of last month, more than 30,000 people marched through George St and the Octagon in Dunedin demanding the government keep their promise to not make cuts to the project.
"It's a vitally important tertiary level care facility for the whole southern region — and there's 350,000 people in this region, which is the same as the population of Christchurch.
"So they absolutely need a right-sized tertiary level care facility.
"This is where the ambulances come. This is where they're always going to come."
After a public appeal to name the ambulance, "Cliff" was the overwhelming choice of the council.
"We've got ambulances for the purpose, but we don't want a hospital at the bottom of the cliff."
Mr Radich and others will be driving the ambulance throughout the South, making many stops along the way to collect signatures for the petition and to sell "Save our Southern Hospital" badges.
"Already the nurses' petition has hit 30,000 signatures, and so our expectation is we'll get a whole lot higher than that over the course of this campaign."
The hope was to eventually take the ambulance to Wellington with the message.
