(First Posted August 11, 2013) Driving between Washington, DC and Charlottesville, Virginia last year, one could see an unusual vehicle parked on the side of the road: a Ferrett armored car, built in the United Kingdom by Daimler from 1952 to 1971. The Ferrett served in the British Army through the Persian Gulf War of 1990, and some remain in service with other armies to this day. These light (3.7 ton) 4×4 reconnaissance vehicles were capable of a top speed of 58 miles per hour, powered by a 130 horsepower Rolls Royce B60 inlet over exhaust inline six (one of the B40/B60/B80 family of military vehicle engines with four, six or eight inline cylinders ).
Many of the 4,409 produced were sold as surplus by the United Kingdom and Australia, and they have been popular with collectors. Their compact size and light weight make them readily usable on public roads, more so than other ex-military armored vehicles such as the South African “Marauder” tested and reviewed by Top Gear in 2011 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoRmT0iRic). This example made its way from the United Kingdom to the United States (the number plate above the driver’s position indicates that it is ex-British Army) and wears Virginia antique license plates, meaning that it is registered and street legal. Capable of highway speeds, highly dent resistant, and difficult to break into and steal, this postwar classic two seater (commander/gunner and driver) is a tempting choice for use in today’s urban and suburban driving environment, with or without the Browning machine gun.
I knew a guy who had one of these. He took me for a drive in it out in the country one day. After a while we swapped seats and I got behind the wheel. It had a manual transmission, but in order to change gears I had to first select the next gear, and then push the clutch in, and then let the clutch out for the gear change to take affect. That took some getting used to.
When I was riding in the turret the owner told me to watch where I put my hands as the turret hatch had a bad tendency to slam down onto a guys hands. I made sure my hands were not in a place where that could happen. After we switched seats I heard a loud bang and then a low moan from the owner behind me. Yes, the hatch had slammed down on his hand. I drove the Ferret back to his house as quickly as I could, which was not easy with the weird transmission shifting procedure. We then applied some first aid to his hand. A couple of his fingers were smashed but not bad enough to go to the hospital. A memorable day all around.
I imagine the guy who got his hand smashed found it to be a less than memorable day…
Wondering what’s the off road capability of the ferrets. I think the transmission was a Wilson pre-selector.
Wiki says it had a .30 Browning, which sounds like US Army .30-06 , not the .303 standard of the British Army. Why so?
BTW, FN of Belgium was & is still the Browning licensee in Europe. Their designs got as far as Poland, which had Browning-pattern small-arms in their ’30s army.
Wiki has been known in the past to make a mistake or two….
I have seen Ferrets armed with both the .303 and the 30 Caliber Browning. But the .303 was the standard armament as far as I know.
I initially typed “.30 cal Browning,” then did some research to try to say something definitive about whether the machine gun would be .30-06 or .303, but soon gave up since it seemed futile. It is likely that the original weapons of this Ferret were removed before it was sold to civilians in the UK, and that the machine gun is non-original, added after importation into the US to complete the look.
In any case, I am 100% certain that the machine gun is either a dummy or deactivated, since it would be foolish to leave a real, functioning machine gun exposed in the open along a rural highway. Either rust or theft would be sufficient reason.
Anyone wanting to buy one, we have one for sale here: http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/daimler/auction-618753824.htm I must say the cabin view looks interesting!
There are one or two of these in my area (eastern Canada). They come out during the summer car shows. I think one is owned by a local legion branch.
A sidemount spare – fancy!
Scott beat me to it but yes there was one for sale on the tarde and since the changes it can be driven on your car licence but not for hire or reward.
I built a Ferrett model when I was a kid. And had the full set of Matchbox military-themed Rola-matics from the 70s. There was a ‘Weasel’, but I don’t think there was a ‘Ferrett’.
I had that same Matchbox! It was a good one, a nice very solid chunk of metal. Nothing says camouflage like a metallic Kelly Green…
The Matchbox military ‘Rola-matics’ were ridiculously overbuilt. Strangely, the whole series came in candy apple colours.
Matchbox did a Ferret in the much earlier regular wheel series, no machine gun though…
I missed this when it first came out. I’m surprised that the Ferret used what sounds to me like some sort of pre-selector type of transmission. I spent some 10 years in a Army National Guard armor battalion and our tanks and armored personnel carriers had an automatic transmission, as well as power steering and power brakes. Our vehicles were designed somewhat later than the Ferret but even as far back as WWII most U.S. armored vehicles had an automatic transmission of some sort. For the record the U.S. has long since gone away from the 30.06 round for light crew served machine guns and moved to the NATO standard 7.62 mm round. As far as I know the Browning M2 .50 caliber MG is still in use, some hundred years after it was developed.
This was a great little post, I dug it out to rerun it when I ran across it as there is a guy known in Porsche (repair) circles that is into military machinery and I’ve seen discussions with him talking about driving his Ferrett around his property somewhere in Georgia.
About 40 years ago there was a road registered Ferret running around here. Saw it a few times, haven’t seen it since. I had the pleasure of sitting in one in BC last year.
Tank Museum video (narrated by the inimitable David Fletcher) about the Daimler Scout Car, the Ferret’s predecessor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVqNSnvaGVs
I don’t think the US Army had anything as good.