Creative Industry Rides
Volume 1, Catalog Series #7
Alexander Rea’s 1966 Land Rover Series IIA SWB
Built in June 1966 and dispatched to the Ministry of Defense, Central British Army Vehicle Depot in Feltham Middlesex England. Alexander’s Land Rover served in the Honourable Artillery Company, a reserve regiment in the British Army. Incorporated by royal charter in 1537 by King Henry VIII, it is the oldest regiment in the British Army and is considered the second-oldest military unit in the world.
The motto of the HAC, on the sticker on the doors, is Arma Pacis Fulcra, which can be loosely translated as “armed strength for peace”.
Alexander, freelance executive creative and technology producer and director, found her on Bring a Trailer in Fall 2022. She was originally brought to the U.S. in 1990 with only 4K miles, by Jamie Kitman, now an internationally-regarded automotive journalist (contributor to R&T, GQ, NY Times, Vanity Fair and England’s The Road Rat,). At the time he was managing the band They Might Be Giants and they were touring through England. He drove her around NYC for about 15 years. She had a couple more owners that took good care and when he got her she had about 23K miles.
She spent the last summer on jacks where Alexander restored the brakes and replaced the shocks.
What makes this model different from the civilian versions at the time are the NATO plugs on the rear and some other modifications. There other MoD variants such as for mounted artillery and radio.
Alexander assures us that driving a right-hand drive vehicle on the right side of the road in the States is easier than you might think. Shifter is on the left but the pedal order is exactly the same.
That looks like one of the five short wheelbase LandRovers from the HAC’s saluting battery. They were kept highly polished and were used for the firing of gun salutes at the Tower of London – one as the command vehicle and the other four each towing a salute version of a 25pdr gun/howitzer (i.e one without the firing platform or recoil mechanism, and with highly polished muzzle brake and breech). There were about 8 salutes a year, each involving a journey across the City of London (i.e. “The Square Mile”) from Armoury House to the Tower of London as well as, most years, processing in the Lord Mayor’s Show to the Law Courts in the Strand, and back. One year, I believe, they appeared in the Royal Tournament at Earl’s Court, a journey of around 9 miles, which really upped their mileage that year.
That mileage reading (of around 4,000 miles when they were sold off by the Army) may seem surprisingly low for a military vehicle after a quarter of a century’s use but it was genuine. It was not 4,000 plus several times around the clock.