Gen 2 Lightbody

History

The Gen 2A Half Ton Lightweight, the British Army's airportable Shorty of 1968–72, in its early form with the headlamps set inboard in the radiator panel and shallow wings carrying paired side and indicator lamps: the 'Runner 1', built light enough to be slung under a Wessex helicopter.

Officially it was the Truck, Utility, ½ ton, 4×4, Runner Gen 2A — 'Runner 1' in service shorthand — and it was offered as a 12-volt General Service vehicle or the 24-volt FFR (fitted for radio) with its screened electrics. Production began in November 1968 and the first examples entered service in 1969. On those early Gen 2A vehicles the headlamps sat inboard in the radiator panel, because the shallow front wings were shaped only to cover the wheels and carry the side lights and indicators; in 1970 the lamps moved out to the wings, which is the arrangement the Gen 3 Lightweight inherited when it replaced the IIA in 1972. In all 2,989 Gen 2A Lightweights were built before the change-over, against 37,897 Lightweights of both marks by the end of production in 1984. They went to all three services, the great majority to the Army, and stayed in British use into the 1990s; the type was also exported to more than twenty countries, the Dutch armed forces taking left-hand-drive diesel vehicles. The registry's model shows an early Gen 2A in its inboard-headlamp form, in the Deep Bronze Green the Army painted its vehicles before the change to NATO green. It follows the Wikimedia Commons photograph by Meltie; that vehicle carries an owner's electric fan and an extra spotlamp, which are not represented.