RAC Road Service Land Rover Series I 80-inch hard top KAD 265 in the Club's blue Road Service scheme with a bumper spotlight and TOWING sign — one of the Royal Automobile Club's first four-wheeled road patrol vehicles of the early 1950s, documented by Oxford Diecast's models of the real vehicle.
BASE VEHICLESeries I 80″BUILT BYRover Company (Land Rover Series I 80-inch hard top)IN SERVICE1950–53OPERATED INUnited KingdomPRODUCTIONunknownLAYOUT4 wheels · 80″
The record
The Royal Automobile Club's road patrols were motorcycle combinations until the early 1950s, when the Club began putting patrolmen into Land Rovers that could carry proper tools, tow a car and work in any weather. The 80-inch hard tops were among its first four-wheeled patrol vehicles, painted the RAC's dark blue with the Club's diamond badge and ROAD SERVICE lettering, and fitted with a spotlight on the bumper for night work and a TOWING sign to warn following traffic when a car was on the rope.
KAD 265 is recorded by Oxford Diecast's 1:43 model LAN180006 (and its 1:76 counterpart), the reference here: RAC blue all over with blue wheels, ROAD SERVICE in white on the board below the windscreen, the RAC diamond over ROAD SERVICE on the hard-top sides, the diamond on the left wing front and the black KAD 265 plate on the right, a TOWING sign and a spotlight on the bumper, and the spare stowed inside rather than on the bonnet. The registry model reproduces that vehicle in the Breakdown group; the size of the RAC's early Land Rover fleet is not given in the source.
Specification
MANUFACTURERRover Company (Land Rover Series I 80-inch hard top)
MODIFIER / COACHBUILDERRoyal Automobile Club (road patrol fit and livery)
MANUFACTUREDSeries I 80-inch, early 1950s; KAD (Gloucestershire) registration
ENGINERover 1.6/2.0 L inlet-over-exhaust petrol
PRODUCTION RUNunknown (early RAC Land Rover patrol fleet)
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
OPERATED INUnited Kingdom
STATUSunknown
REGISTRATIONKAD 265
FITTINGSBumper spotlight, TOWING sign, internally stowed spare, hard top
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINESeries I
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE80″
CATEGORYSpecial · Breakdown
Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.
Renders & references
Front three-quarterRegistry renderThree-quarterRegistry renderSideRegistry renderRearRegistry renderFrontRegistry renderOxford Diecast 1:43 model of KAD 265 — the reference for this model; linked only.Oxford Diecast ↗
Where it was
GB United Kingdom1951–1962 · RAC road patrols, Gloucestershire registration
BuiltLand Rover, Lode Lane, SolihullUnited Kingdom · 1950–195352.43, -1.78