Standard Car 4x2, or Car Armoured Light Standard, better known as the Beaverette, was a British

improvised Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

armoured car produced during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

History

The first version of the vehicle was built in 1940 by

Standard Motor Company The Standard Motor Company Limited was a motor vehicle manufacturer, founded in Coventry, England, in 1903 by Reginald Walter Maudslay. For many years, it manufactured Ferguson TE20 tractors powered by its Vanguard engine. All Standard's tracto ...

at the instigation of

Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...

, then

Minister of Aircraft Production The Minister of Aircraft Production was, from 1940 to 1945, the British government minister at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, one of the specialised supply ministries set up by the British Government during World War II. It was responsible ...

(hence the name Beaverette). It was based on commercial car chassis, on which a simple riveted

armoured Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or fr ...

hull was mounted. The 11mm of steel was backed by 3 inch thick oak planks. The hull was open at the top and at the rear. The armament consisted of a

Bren light machine gun The Bren gun was a series of light machine guns (LMG) made by Britain in the 1930s and used in various roles until 1992. While best known for its role as the British and Commonwealth forces' primary infantry LMG in World War II, it was also use ...

, which could be fired through a slot in the

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which artillery, guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to Ancient history, antiquity, th ...

armour. Subsequent versions received all-around protection and a machine gun turret - an enclosed one with a Bren MG or an open-topped one with twin

Vickers machine gun The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a Water cooling, water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more me ...

s. Some vehicles also carried Boys anti-tank rifles. Some also had a No. 11 or No. 19 radio set. Production was stopped in 1942. About 2,800 units were delivered. Describing the vehicle in 1941, a correspondent for ''The Light Car'' magazine reported "touching the 60-mark []" while following one along a road. Restricted vision meant the Beaverette driver had to rely on an observer to relay information about other road traffic and also to consider situations well in advance, for example, when making a turn, the driver had to base his steering on "observations made something like ten yards [] back". The Beaverette was extensively used by the Home Guard (United Kingdom), British Army and RAF Regiment for home defence service and training. The vehicle is said to have suffered from excessive weight and to have been hard to handle. IWM-H-7331-Beaverette-Scotland-19410214

Variants

*Mk I - original version. *Mk II - had all-around armour and the radiator grill was moved from a vertical position to a horizontal one. *Mk III Beaverbug - had a shortened chassis, a redesigned hull without curved front wings, top armour and a machine gun turret. A Mk III was used by the RAF Regiment in the capture of a

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 The Focke-Wulf Fw 190, nicknamed ''Würger'' (" Shrike") is a German single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank at Focke-Wulf in the late 1930s and widely used during World War II. Along with its well-known counterpart, ...

and destruction of another when they landed at

RAF West Malling Royal Air Force West Malling or RAF West Malling is a former Royal Air Force station located south of West Malling, Kent and west of Maidstone, Kent, England. Originally used as a landing area during the First World War,New Zealand Railways Department The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR (New Zealand Government Railways) and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining New Zealand's railway infrastructure and operating the railway ...

Hutt Workshops The Hutt Railway Workshops is a major railway engineering facility in the Lower Hutt suburb of Gracefield in the Wellington region of New Zealand's North Island. It is state-owned enterprise KiwiRail's only workshops, and was opened in 1930. ...

. The car used a Ford 3/4 or 1-ton truck chassis and plate salvaged from the merchant ships ''Port Bowen'' and ''Mokoia'' for armour. They had a crew of four; 208 units were built.

Survivors

A Mark III Beaverette is displayed at the

Imperial War Museum Duxford Imperial War Museum Duxford is a branch of the Imperial War Museum near Duxford in Cambridgeshire, England. Britain's largest aviation museum, Duxford houses the museum's large exhibits, including nearly 200 aircraft, military vehicles, artill ...

. In 2018,

the Tank Museum The Tank Museum (previously The Bovington Tank Museum) is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. It is about north of the village of Wool and west of the major port of Poole. The collection ...

acquired a similar Mark III for restoration whilst a third Mark III is in the Cobbaton Combat Collection, a private collection of military vehicles in

Umberleigh Umberleigh is a former large manor within the historic hundred of (North) Tawton, but today a small village in North Devon in England. It used to be an ecclesiastical parish, but following the building of the church at Atherington it becam ...

, Devon in the United Kingdom A Mark IV Beaverette is displayed at the ''Museum Bevrijding Vleugels'' in the Netherlands. A second Mark IV is preserved at The Curragh Military Museum in Ireland.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography *George Forty - ''World War Two Armoured Fighting Vehicles and Self-Propelled Artillery'', Osprey Publishing 1996, . *I. Moschanskiy - ''Armored vehicles of the Great Britain 1939-1945 part 2'', Modelist-Konstruktor, Bronekollektsiya 1999-02 (И. Мощанский - ''Бронетанковая техника Великобритании 1939-1945 часть 2'', Моделист-Конструктор, Бронеколлекция 1999-02).

External links

Beaverette Virtual Museum
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 World War II armoured cars World War II armoured fighting vehicles of the United Kingdom Beaverette Armoured cars of the United Kingdom Military vehicles introduced from 1940 to 1944 Improvised armoured fighting vehicles Improvised combat vehicles