Neil Huband investigates a rare and unusual armoured car that takes pride of place in the Shopland Collection
It’s long been said that to win a conventional war it is vital to have access to more equipment, more vehicles and more armour than the enemy.
Post Dunkirk, with 80% of the British Expeditionary Force’s equipment left on the beaches and French quaysides and despite the miraculous recovery of more than 558,000 men, Britain faced a severe logistical crisis. There was not enough transport, artillery or armour to defend its own island, let alone take on the Nazis around the Mediterranean and the Japanese in the Far East.
Reconnaissance vehicles and armoured cars were in particularly short supply, and with no possibility of immediately increasing production of the Humber armoured car or the Daimler Dingo, the War Department turned to Canada for help. The Canadians took the Dingo design, Ford built the Lynx and General Motors (GMC) in Canada took on the Humber and built the Fox armoured car.
