V8 forward control

History

One survives, much altered by a life at Heathrow and on a Humberside farm.

Back-to-back seats faced front and rear along the body, a canvas tilt went over a frame whose legs dropped into sockets beside the seats, the floor was tongued-and-grooved aluminium, and the rear body had dropsides and a drop tail with small lockers between the cab back and the dropsides and more beneath the body between the front and rear wheels. The surviving history of one four-wheel FC82 shows how the few built were dispersed: sold at auction as a dropside with tilt, it was bought almost new by a Estate hire business, passed after eight months to Heathrow Airport — rebodied as a mobile workshop and bad-weather rescue vehicle with work lights, extra batteries and a heavy rear tow bar, and reputedly the first vehicle painted in British Airways' dark blue and grey — then to a Humberside farmer who fitted a flat body for carrying a vintage tractor.