stonefield
 

Back in the late 1970s a private british company Stonefield produced a 1.5 ton 4x4 with the intentions of winning a lucrative order from the British army. Two other companies Landrover and Volvo submitted vehicles in the same class, following extensive trials the Stonefield failed to gain favour with the ministry and lost out on the contract. They did however gain an order from Malaysia for around 60 units and a number of various civilian varients were produced for example police, fire, and utility services. I had the fortune to be able to test drive a couple of these vehicles when the company were based at Rochester in Kent and found them a good cross country vehicle to handle i obviously never tested the way the army would have done but found some of the comments at the time rather harsh. The first photo shows the very early prototype with rather ungainly cab
Les

One of the first models with the revised cab and large windscreen

Final revised cab with smaller windscreen

On trials with 105mm gun

Thanks Les, for bringing back an obscure bit of British military automotive history. I guess this truck was built for the British Army requirement for an air-transportable heavy duty four wheel drive truck, which was won by the Land-Rover 101?

Hanno

Just for info for MLU readers:

Les Freathey contributes articles for Military Machines International, a first class production magazine from UK.

Yes Hanno the landrover gained the contract, here are a few more pics including some of the civilian vehicles.

NO1 prototype put a handle on the front and it would have been one up from a barrow

two versions of the protected police vehicle, i believe a number of these made it to the Far East

2nd

civilian version used by a television co for outside broacasts

6x6 fire and rescue

6x6 military prototype without rear tilt

6x6

And some have survived in the UK!

Ad from Milweb: