Never Was Magazine

Lord K’s Garage #112: Royal Humber:

Queen Elizabeth emerging from an armored vehicle… A shot from some Dieselpunk movie?

No. It’s a news photo taken in 1941. The Humber Ironside recce car had a limited luxury version. Here’s the story of “basic” Ironsides and their Royal siblings, as told by the Reconaissance Corps.
The “Light Armoured Car” class had been evolved of necessity in June 1940 in order to provide as rapidly as possible armoured vehicles to re-equip the British Army after the Dunkirk evacuation and to defend aircraft factories and other key industrial points.

The Humber Light Armoured Car, known as the “Humberette”, was ordered by the War Office and consisted of an open-top armoured body on a Humber Super Snipe car chassis with a six-cylinder 75/80 bhp engine. Few vehicles appear to have been produced in this form, because an improved version “Ironside I”, broadly the same but carried on W.D. pattern wheels with Run Flat tyres, followed soon afterwards and work on the 1,200 of these ordered was being carried out by the Rootes Group in July 1940.

The Ironside was named, not descriptively, but after the recently retired Home Forces commander, Field Marshal Lord Ironside. Humberettes and Ironsides were issued to tankless cavalry regiments and, in addition, to some tank regiments in lieu of scout cars.

However, as more tanks, scout cars and proper armoured cars came off the production lines to make up for the losses incurred by the Royal Armoured Corps at Dunkirk, Beaverettes and Ironsides became available in January 1941 to equip the first battalions of the newly raised Reconnaissance Corps, and the new nomenclature of “Cars, 4x2, Light Reconnaissance” was adopted for them.

A turretted, fully enclosed version first appeared in 1941, known as the MkII. The Car, 4x2, Light Reconnaissance, Humber MkII, was a version of the Ironside I roofed-in and with a turret added. At the end of 1941 a four-wheel drive version, Humber LRC MkIII, appeared, looking much the same as the MkII except for the front wheel hubs and detail changes, but the cross-country capability was greatly improved.

The final version was the MkIIIA, in which some improvements were made in the hull design, including extra observation ports at the front corners of the fighting compartment. In all 3,600 Humber Light Reconnaissance Cars were built (including the 200 Ironside Is) and the MkIII and MkIIIA s were the cars of the class most widely used by the Reconnaissance Corps in action, although many were also employed overseas by the RAF Regiment for airfield defence.

Six Special Ironside Saloons were made for use by the Royal Family and Cabinet Ministers. They were derived from the standard Ironside and had a division between the front and rear compartment.

The left-hand front seat back squab could be folded forward and the Perspex division panel moved to the right to facilitate access to the rear seat. Equipment in the rear compartment included an 8-day clock, a microphone to the driver, a wool rug and a fire extinguisher. Uphostery was hide, with West of England cloth on the sides, below waist level.