Ref.: RODE-00801
Rolls Royce Armoured Car Mk.I The Rolls-Royce armoured car was a British armoured car developed in 1914 and used in World War I and in the early part of World War II. The Royal Naval Air Service raised the first British armoured car squadron during the First World War. In September 1914 all available Rolls Royce Silver Ghost chassis, including their engines whose power had been increased to about 80 hp, were requisitioned to form the basis for the new armoured car. The following month a special committee of the Admiralty Air Department, among whom was Flight Commander T.G. Hetherington, designed the superstructure which consisted of armoured bodywork and a single turret for a Vickers machine gun. The first three vehicles were delivered on 3 December 1914, although by then the mobile period on the Western Front, where the primitive predecessors of the Rolls-Royce cars had served, had already come to an end. Chassis production was suspended in 1917 to enable Rolls-Royce to concentrate on aero engines. The vehicle was modernized in 1920 and in 1924, resulting in Rolls-Royce 1920 Pattern and Rolls-Royce 1924 Pattern. In 1940, 34 vehicles which served in Egypt with the 11th Hussars regiment had the "old" turret replaced with an open-topped one carrying a Boys anti-tank rifle, .303 inch Bren machine gun and smoke grenade launchers.