Military APV Gen 3 Prototype

History

The Radford Site, whose owner has held the vehicle since restoration, describes it as "basically a Radford with no turret, extended rear sides and with a thin steel roof". The dating is contested and this record follows the primary specialist source rather than the published books. It was a private venture intended to test the market for an enclosed Radford, and on the site owner's account it initially found no demand. Mechanically it was a compromise. The four-cylinder engine left the vehicle, in the owner's words, "severely under powered"; it had no brake servo and no ventilation at all, a shortcoming inherited by the production SB.301 and only cured on the SB.401 with its roof extractor. Only the single prototype was built. Its concept reached the market in 1974 as the SB.301, which moved to the Mark 3 Radford's 2,625 cc six-cylinder engine to carry a crew of eight.