Work on what was eventually to become the Austin Champ had started during the closing years of Word War Two with the intention of producing a British Jeep.
Austin was asked to fit one of their own engines into a Jeep, and then to construct a prototype for an all-British replacement for the US vehicle. By 1944 their competitors, Nuffield Mechanisations, had produced a number of prototypes for such a vehicle, developing designs produced by the Fighting Vehicle Design Department (FVDD).
Powered by what may have been a l,486cc Jowett water-cooled flat-four engine, the so-called Gutty featured a body of semi-stressed skin construction, independent suspension by longitudinal torsion bars, and a convertible steering position with duplicate pedal controls.
Right: The Champ’s predecessor was the Wolseley Mudlark.
It appeared in 1948. the same year as the Land Rover, and around 30 vehicles were built as mobile test beds. (PW)
Above: One of the 48 pre-production Land Rovers showing the vehicle in more-or-less the form in which it was initially produced. The centre steering position has gone and both hght - and left-hand drive vehicles formed part of this initial batch. (RMC)
The Gutty was not a resounding success and the designers at Nuffields were forced to go back to the drawing board. As part of the redesign process the vehicle was to adopt the standardised Rolls-Royce B40 four-cylinder engine, part of a family of similar four, six and eight-cylinder power units. Since the redesigned Gutty was not ready in sufficient time, some 34 Land Rovers were used as mobile test beds for the new Rolls-Royce engine.
By the time the vehicle emerged in 1948 as the Rolls-Royce-powered Wolseley FV1800 Mudlark, there was little to link it to the Gutty whose ungainly flat-panelled full-width body had been replaced by a rather more curvaceous design featuring separate front and rear mudguards. The independent suspension was retained, as was the stressed-skin design and, unusually, the vehicle offered five speeds in both directions by virtue of incorporating the forward/reverse gear in the transfer case.
In 1951, following the construction of 30 pre-production ‘Mudlarks’, the War Office issued a tender for a production contract for 15,000 similar vehicles. Although approached. Rover was obviously busy with the Land Rover, which had been on the market for three years and declined to become involved, instead offering Land Rovers at a saving of ?3 million! In 1952 the contract went to Austin who started production at their Cofton Hackett factory in the West Midlands.
Sadly, the production vehicle, designated FV1801 and soon nicknamed‘Champ’after the civilian equivalent, had none of the Jeep’s virtues. It was heavy, over-complex, and expensive. Problems quickly arose in service, with the rear axle proving especially vulnerable to failure.
By 1955 production of the FV1801 was complete, with the initial contract terminated prematurely after only 11,732 vehicles had been constructed. Each vehicle was said to have cost in the region of ? 1,100, at a time when a Land Rover cost around ?550.
In 1948 the War Office had started buying Land Rovers as an interim measure whilst the FV1801 project was brought to fruition. The intention was always that the Champ would replace the Jeep in front-line service, with the Land Rover used as a ‘behind the lines’ back-up. As it happened things did not work out that way and the War Office realised that, although the Champ could perform various tricks which the Land Rover could not, perhaps some of these tricks were not actually necessary in peacetime.
For a period, the Jeep, Champ and the Land Rover served alongside one another in the British Army, almost as equals. But, at about the time that the Jeeps were finally withdrawn in the mid-1950s, the War Office decided to effectively abandon the Champ. There was to be no further production and, by August 1958, the Land Rover had been chosen as the British Army’s standard ‘A ton-class tactical vehicle.
Thus, Rover’s ‘son of Jeep’ replaced the expensive purpose-designed military vehicle and, unbeknown to those players involved in this drama from the beginning, a long and illustrious military career lay ahead... stretching more than 50 years into the future.
World History
