Armoured Car

Guest Vehicle !

For once, I'm proud to present a vehicle which I don't own. Nonetheless, I've borrowed this very fine Armoured Car for a few days in order for me to test it after its restoration and tell its owner -- His Grace the Duke of Couteau -- if all is alright with it. So far, so good!

This Couteautish designed and produced Armoured Car was made a few years after the Second World War, in 1949. In fact, the design process started in December of 1948 when His Grace the Duke ordered his military designers to imagine and produce a vehicle fit for both reconnaissance missions at the border and urban fighting against the communist opponents to the regime. If the not ideal off-road performances of the Armoured Car somewhat restricted its capabilities as a scout car (it is a 4 wheel drive, but it has somewhat too narrow wheels for its weight and therefore has a bad tendency to get too easily stuck on boggy terrain), its efficiency in street fighting proved invaluable for the Duke's soldier. The armour is indeed very thick, even by today's standards, and the car was practically invincible when deployed in urban areas and properly supported by the infantry. The Ducal Police in Couteau even obtained 6 of these vehicles, of which this particular car is today the sole survivor (the gray livery of our model is the one adopted by the Ducal Police at the time). Yet, the model has been used successfully, both by the police and the military, up to the early 1980's. One model, used by the police in charge of the protection of Couteau airport, even retired as late as 1991. Quite a long road for such a small little car!

The crew of two access the driver's seat or turret by the rear hatch. Its position comes in handy if the vehicle is struck and damaged by enemy fire coming from the front and the crew must abandon the car. In urban settings though, the fire could come from virtually any direction, including from higher buildings, which rendered the sealed cupola on top of the machine gunner indispensable.

The machine gun itself, mounted on the cupola pivoting 360° by hand, is a 14.5 mm KPV soviet design heavy machine gun. It has an effective range of almost 2000 meters and can penetrate up to 30 mm of armour at 500 meters. The fact that a soviet produced gun was used to fight, among others, communists is quite ironic! At last, note that the police had generally no camouflage or fake or real branches on top of their cars, unlike our model, but some police units patrolling the countryside around Couteau sometimes used this type of cover, as shown on some photographs of the time.

We wish to thank His Grace the Duke of Couteau for allowing us to present this Armoured Car on this blog.