At the outbreak of war in 1939, the British Army was so desperately short of vehicles for liaison roles that it resorted to using almost 4,300 civilian-owned cars. Orders for some 3,800 further vehicles were placed directly with manufacturers such as Morris, Austin and Standard before the end of the year. At the start of 1940, a further 2,300 cars were added to its fleet of civilian vehicles, which had grown to 26,000, a figure which included thousands of private cars, some of which had been bought outright from their owners by the government, along with 7,000 motorcycles and 14,000 trucks. In June 1940, the War Department placed orders for an additional 12,660 cars to replace the almost 8,000 lost during the Dunkirk evacuation that year.
Several types of vehicles, including the Hillman Ten, Morris Ten and Standard Twelve, were used with a few modifications to adapt them to military service. For example, there was an open-backed, “pick-up” -style truck with a canvas top for carrying light cargo loads. The Austin Ten had slightly larger cylinders fitted to increase the engine capacity to 1237cc, and the Morris Ten had the SU carburettor replaced with a Solex type. Otherwise, most civilian vehicles were
