The first post war military contract came almost by accident. The British Army in India had a requirement for Armoured Cars for areas such as the North West frontier. A delegation was despatched to Britain to see what was on offer and particularly to look at the offerings from Rolls Royce as wartime models had performed well. As well as being expensive they surprisingly were unable to get over the gradient test on the cross country trial. There was however also at the trials a 1 1/2 ton Crossley based on the chassis that had been intended for a Russian contract that came to nothing because of the Revolution. This was the chassis that was under consideration as a medium truck for India and eventually became the IGL1. It sailed through the trials and one was immediately purchased for an extended trial which consisted of loading it with 4 tons of ballast and driving 4000 miles round Britain. An order for 32 followed with bodies by Vickers.
No comments:
Post a Comment