The first armoured trucks rode on 12.00.29 tyres, raised on axles well off the ground, for their work in Malaya, with the weight of the armour putting quite some strain on the standard suspension. Due to the shortage of metal, the, probably 8mm, sheet was allegedly recycled from a scuttled Japanese battleship in Singapore Harbour (from research by Gordon A. McKinlay of New South Wales) and the clever guys in the local 40 Base Workshop REME who mated it together, sometime between 1951 and 55. The RL-vehicle structure had cupola openings mid-centre in the roof, front and back, for machine gunners and six doors, two in the cab, two mid-way along the body and two at the back. The First Battalion of New Zealand troops was known to have used these in Malaya. We believe they were known as ‘Big Daddy’ in the Rhodesian Army. We found an image of an alternative prototype, British Army RL ‘Pig’ serving abroad, registered 23 BR 01, while the original ‘brick shaped’ armoured RLs were registered in the BJ series, 38 BJ 90 being an example.
The second truck was primarily created for the conflict in Aden, a more basic armoured Bedford, in that it had been stripped-down to a minimum structure first. It then had a V-shaped, under-cab scuttle built to channel the blast from a mine
