you
now this rather saw
be looking specimen is actually clusters
across the Chevrolet armored car it's a
very old title and absolutely
meaningless in fact the chassis of the
vehicle is a Chevrolet a Canadian built
Chevrolet with a six-cylinder engine but
it's only a 4x2 layout in other words
the back axles driven the front isn't
there's no four-wheel drive originally
these vehicles were built on crossly
Chevy's closely was a firm built based
in Manchester who produced some very
rugged and quite useful chassés and they
were designed for use on the north west
frontier of India the body was produced
by Vickers because Armstrong's inthere
of bulletproof steel but of course they
only had to be bulletproof sufficiently
to keep out rifle bullets and now and
again machine gun bullets they weren't
for use against other armored vehicles
at all because the tribesmen on the
frontier didn't have any um now on sadly
the car has been absolutely ruined it
you came to us as a gift from the
government of Pakistan but everything
inside it has been ripped out and the
engine and all this front end has been
welded up to cover it it spoiled its
appearance really that's all there is
now the interesting thing about the
design is really probably the dome
turret this was designed for use on the
Northwest Frontier and although as you
can see it's got two Vickers machine
guns both more or less pointing forwards
it has four mountings for them the other
two in the back so you could have two
machine guns pointing forward one
pointing forward and one back whichever
you like
and it was possible to move the machine
guns from one place to another very
quickly took about 15 seconds to take a
machine gun out and replace it somewhere
else and as you took the machine gun out
the aperture she closed that wheel
spring so you never got any risk of
bullets coming in on top of the turret
is a Coppola opens and shuts love like a
clamshell for the commander so he could
keep it half shut over his head while
peering out but the Coppola could be
rotated independently of the turret so
it's really quite a useful arrangement
the other odd thing about them is the
doors the door here on the right hand
side of the car
opens backwards so it opens that way the
hinges are there on the other side
the door opens forwards for the hinges
at the front and the idea was that you
could actually get out of this car under
fire with some armored protection from
the door whether the shooting was coming
from in front or behind the purpose of
the dome terrace and one of the reasons
it was domed was that most of the
attackers were firing from above so with
a rounded top to the turret the bullets
tended to bounce off but that was all
they were used for they were limited to
the roads because they they were really
no good across country and therefore
although they kept the tribesmen at bay
they weren't all that effective off-road
they were absolutely useless especially
without four-wheel drive now in this
form with the Chevrolet chassis they
appeared in about 1939 to begin with and
they were used by the Indian army
I think the 13th Lancers was one of the
main users and they they used them in
the Middle East during the early part of
the Second World War but they were a
presence and no more than that they
couldn't naturally fight with them at
all it would normally have running
boards at the sides here it would have a
bumper at the front and proper
headlights rather than the mess you see
at the moment that's all of his left of
it unfortunately and they do say that
they were made in two batches with the
ventilators on the side of the bonnet
either full length or half length but
I've never really been able to
substantiate that extra holes were cut
in for the exhaust because they had to
change it but the Chevrolet engines a
lot more powerful even than the old
clothes the engine so they had a fair
turn of speed and by the time Chevrolet
chasis had come in they had large
section pneumatic tires which gave a
much better ride than the old semi-solid
used on them when they were cross Lee's
which also very narrow and caused the
cows to turn over at regular intervals
which wasn't really the idea at all
the only other thing it's got is a very
fancy adjustable shutter for the driver
this is hinged so you can actually open
it up and that helps the driver to see
where he's going
either that you close it downs it is at
the moment and the driver can only see
through a tiny slit there which gives
him a view along the bonnet but that's
about all very narrow and very difficult
to control under those conditions but
you on roads where there's no real no
real risk from them
you