These photographs are from John Bamford's website located here. These have been reporduced with permission of John and hopefully we will see this collection added to in quality and quantity in the future.

These photos were taken by John over a number of years. The first set of photos are from the testing and trials of the first two prototype Land Rover Ambulances in 1960. The second set are from 1960 and 1961 and are of the rebuilt Ambulance prototype on trials around Australia.

John was also able to shed some light onto the reason why the Australian Army Land Rovers adopted the square cut guards instead of retaining the normal rounded ones.

I can tell you exactly why the mudguards were changed, because I was responsible for the change.

During the first ambulance trials we experienced heavy rain on black soil roads on several occasions.

What happens with black soil is that it first gets very slippery, then soft and boggy, followed by a period when the black soil is so sticky that it will stick to the tyres, increase the effective tyre diameter, and then build up to completely fill the mudguards. If left to dry it then goes very hard, and can need something like a fire hose to get it out.

At various stages on the trials the mudguards completely filled with sticky black soil so that the ambulance could not drive on or even start off in first gear low ratio. Every few miles we were forced to stop and dig the compacted black soil out of the wheel aches, before we could continue in low ratio. Getting the soil off the tyres and out of the mudguards was far from easy.

The idea of the cut away mudguards was to make it much easier to get around the tyres and into the mudguard recesses to dig such soil out. The cut away mudguards were then introduced in all the Australian Army Land Rovers.

Pictures of the first two prototype Army Ambulances on trials around Australia in 1960

Route for Tropical Trials 1960 and 1960/61 (excluding occasional excursions)

And you said it would get through here!

Black soil road west of Hughenden, Queensland

Ever had that feeling when you see a trailer (just like yours) cartwheeling end for end all on its own?

South of Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Re-built prototype Army Ambulance on trials around Australia in 1960/61.

Before Camooweal, Queensland, near the Northern Territory border

Between Trephina Gorge and Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Demonstration of prototype Army Ambulance at 31 degrees from vertical (from "Army" Newspaper 3 October 1963).

At Army Design Establishment (ADE), Melbourne - Overturn angle was about 40 degrees.

This photo was taken by John Bamford on ADE vehicle trials of what appears to be a Mk.1 ACCO in a semi trailer configuration. The trailer appears to be a WW11 type Blitz orStudibaker type, Freighter or a Budd trailer most likely.