Series IIb Forward Control Number 7
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- Category: IIa and IIb Forward Control
- Last Updated on Friday, 05 August 2011 20:15
- Written by Jonathan Currah
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Jonathan Currah Wrote:
I have RHD Series IIb forward control - number 7. I used to live in the UK, and brought this truck with me to France. As far as I know it has never been registered for the road and according to heritage it was retained in the factory until the 1970s and sold to a man in Nottingham with no rear body. I bought it in the eighties as a scrapyard find, have restored it 10 years ago and it is in current use on private land with a hydraulic tipper body fitted.
Series IIb forward control number 7
Series IIb forward control number 7
The photos above are from the time I took it to the Land Rover meet at Bannegon in central France back in 2005. I am ultimately looking to sell this truck, but would only like it to go to a very good home, as when I bought it from the scrapyard of a friend of mine in the UK, I promised it would never be broken for spares.
One point of interest, when I bought it, the shape of the front end was altered with filler. On doing the resto I discovered the original panels undamaged beneath it. think it might have been used as a mule for development of the 101 fc project or similar. I did talk to somebody years ago, I forget who now, who reckoned it was used for stability tests at one point in the factory.
If anybody can shed any light on its past I would be interested to know. when I bought it, it had an old Harvey Frost crane on the back, and had been used on red trade plates. The chassis rails were full of concrete, when I restored it, and there was a rumour it was fitted with a generator and cement mixer in the Teesside area.
It obviously was retained at the factory for over 10 years, so it must have been used for some project or other.
Jonathan Currah
Swiss Fire Vehicle
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- Category: IIa and IIb Forward Control
- Written by Site Admin
Some time ago US car dealer Findlay Automotive Group purchased this forward control vehicle. It was previously a Swiss Fire Vehicle. With only 14,500 miles recorded, they planned to revive the vehicle, and put it to good use as a promotional tool for their Land Rover Las Vegas dealership. It is a 1964 model with the 2.6 litre petrol motor. Serial # 30300089B.
Pictures © Land Rover Las Vegas:- www.lrlv.com
The 32 Seater Land Rover
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- Category: IIa and IIb Forward Control
- Written by Graeme Aldous
The 32-seater Land-Rover was used at Woburn Abbey in the early 1960s to take visitors on tours of the deer park. A wildlife magazine publisher promoted the Woburn Abbey Safari Service, both as an attraction in its own right but also as a sales opportunity for his glossy colour photo magazines. This was before Chipperfields established the drive-through Safari Park, with more exotic creatures such as lions and elephants.
The vehicle was based on a Land Rover IIa Forward Control flatbed truck.
16 people could be carried on the flatbed in two rows of outward-facing back-to-back wooden seats. They had a canvas top to shield them from the sun and/or rain, and the seats were reached by a pull-out ladder at the back of the flatbed.
The capacity of the vehicle was doubled by a further row of seats on each edge of the flatbed, with passengers putting their feet on fold-down footrests mounted on outriggers. When lowered, these extended the width of the vehicle to some 7½ feet — strictly against Construction & Use Regulations, but as it was only being driven in that way on the private lands of the Abbey, this didn’t matter.
The 32 seater FC.
Each tour of the park looked at the varieties of deer that had been established there by successive Dukes of Bedford, although it was inevitably the cuddly kamikaze rabbits that ran across in front of the truck at the last minute that excited the most interest, and woe betide the poor driver who threatened one with his front wheels (which were, of course, almost behind him!)
It wasn’t the only problem being an ‘experienced driver-guide’ — the FC is almost certainly more stable than it felt from the drivers seat, but there was always the thought that if it did roll you were going to kill at least 8 people on the outriggers on the downstream side. There was always a tendency for the driver to lean into the bend motorcycle-style in an instinctive attempt to keep the vehicle on an even keel.
When he was also talking about deer into a gooseneck microphone and doing an on-the-move range change from high to low ratio with the other hand, it became quite exciting.
The back-to-back seating layout had a major disadvantage in that you could guarantee that only 16 people at a time could see anything interesting, and by the time you’d turned the vehicle round for the other side to have a look, the exotic deer or whatever had wandered away. For this reason, and the comparative ease of getting a larger load of passengers on and off, most drivers favoured the converted Admiralty bus. Based on a Bedford RL chassis, it was given 4WD from a military truck and all the windows were taken out to aid photography. It performed very well off road, but the long wheelbase meant that it was actually possible to go up a gear and down again between the front and rear axles negotiating a tricky spot.
7 species of deer, and a handful of bad-tempered bison, couldn’t compete with elephants and lions, and the service didn’t survive beyond the introduction of the Safari Park. I understand the vehicle was subsequently fitted with a box body, and used as a support vehicle for a circumnavigation of Britain’s coastline. Rumour says that it destroyed its gearbox on a Welsh beach, and was abandoned there.
The 32 seater FC.
If anyone knows the current whereabouts of AXC573B, we’d love to know.
GRAEME ALDOUS.
The Marte forward control
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- Category: IIa and IIb Forward Control
- Written by Site Admin
Information is sparse, but it is known that only around 30 of these vehicles were built by Austrian conversion specialists Marte. The base vehicle is believed to be the IIb forward control, totally re-bodied in aluminium for their intended role, with a 7 seat cabin. They were specified with the 2.6 litre, 84 HP, 6 cylinder petrol engine, and were supplied to the Fire Service in Austria. As with standard IIb FCs, the tyres are 9.00x16 cross-plies. The unladen weight is 2,340kg, whilst it's fully laden weight was 3,500kg. The vehicle pictured at the bottom of the group of three is fitted with a functioning pump.
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IIa and IIb Forward Control
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- Category: IIa and IIb Forward Control
- Written by Site Admin
The IIa FC Prototypes
The Land Rover Series II/IIa 109" did not have enough load capacity to satisfy some customers, so Land Rover developed a Forward Control (FC), or cab-over-engine, design for this market.
Developed at around the same time as Carmichael was building the FT/6 conversions, the factory vehicle differed from the FT/6 in that it sought to increase the gross vehicle weight, rather than simply provide more space on the same chassis.
IIa FC prototype 1
IIa FC prototype 2
The first prototype appeared around 1958. The front dumb irons on the chassis were extended to support the ‘cab’ structure, and the bulkhead was mounted approximately where the front bumper would have been on a standard Land Rover. There was a flat floor in the cab, and a standard seat box grafted onto it. Prototype number one was later photographed with a tray back rear body, and a different cab arrangement, although it is also possible that this vehicle was yet another prototype, as opposed to the same vehicle.
Prototype number 2, shown above, was closer to the final production item, though items of note include the standard doors rather than production items which had the cut-outs for the wheel arches, the 7.50x16 tyres on 5 ½ inch rims (as opposed to the wider offset 6 ½ inch production items) and the length of the rear section of the cab.
The IIa FC
The production IIA forward control Land Rover became available to the public in 1962. It contains a modified Series IIa 109" chassis and 2.25 litre engine hidden under the truck style bodywork. A new sub-frame is bolted to the front of the chassis to carry the cab. The cab itself contains new panels but makes considerable use of standard Series IIa items. Land Rover saw this as a positive selling point for existing large volume customers.
The radiator is moved forwards and the fan is driven by its own mini prop-shaft complete with two universal joints. Most forward controls came with a drop-side tray fitted to the rear. This is supported by a sub-frame of U-channel girders and uprights fixed to the Land Rover chassis. The arrangement is very strong but also heavy. The engine is accessible via a cover which intrudes into the rear tray by a small amount. The load area is large enough to carry an 80" Series I. Standard tyre size is 9.00x16.
The vehicle was also available as a cab/chassis without the rear sub-frame or tray. In this form it was popular for camper-conversions, fire appliances and other special projects. Quite a few forward controls were fitted with a centrally mounted power take-off driven winch. This is a very sensible position for a winch as the weight is between the axles and the winch rope can be run out either forwards or backwards through pulleys and fairleads. Inside, the cab is almost all standard Land Rover Series IIa. Most FC's were fitted with the short pick-up style cab. Due to the extra linkages, forward control steering can be a bit vague. The tray-bodied vehicle is also nose-heavy and can be a bit un-nerving when using the brakes hard, particularly down-hill, unless there is a bit of a load in the back. The vehicle was also under-powered, as it was offered only with the 2.25 litre 4-cylinder petrol or diesel engines. The top speed of a diesel powered IIa FC is around 40 mph. The total production run of the IIa FC is thought to have been around 3193.
A IIb fc (left) and a IIa fc (right) for comparison
The Redwing FT/7 Fire engine conversion
Specialist conversion manufacturer Carmichael produced their 'Redwing FT/7' fire engine, based on the IIa forward control model (click on the picture to view the brochure (pdf)).
The Series IIb
Because of the problems with brakes, engine power and such, an improved Series IIb Forward Control was released in 1966. It was offered with the larger 2.6 litre 6-cylinder petrol engine as an option. The most obvious external change was the moving of the headlights to a lower position and the sidelights to a higher position on the front panel. The wheelbase grew to 110" as the axles were moved slightly on the springs. New axles with a wider track and heavy-duty ENV differentials were fitted. However there were simply too many compromises in the Series IIa/IIb forward control and it was never a great success. Most were used as work trucks - they worked hard and suffered accordingly. Consequently these FC's are now quite rare, straight and complete ones especially so. The total production run of the IIb FC is thought to have been around 2305. IIb production ended in 1972, just in time to make space for the 101 FC to be produced.
Land Rover IIb FC Number 1.
IIb FC number 1 has the much less powerful 2.25 diesel engine fitted. The load capacity was 30cwt, and top speed around 40mph.
Series IIb FC - Pictures © Aaron Main.
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If you can help us out with more information about the FC vehicle types mentioned here, or maybe pics of your FC, please do so. You can contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Land Rover IIa / IIb FC pictures
IIb FC crewcab.
IIb FC crewcab. Pic by Trey Crowther.
IIa FC campervan.
Gert Benedetti's FC.
IIb forward control - Driffield 2008.
Jim's IIb FC conversion
- Details
- Category: IIa and IIb Forward Control
- Written by Site Admin
Jim has had this vehicle on the road now for two years with no problems, and he finds it great fun to drive. (well there's not another one quite like it I'm sure!). He did all of the fabrication, welding, painting, wiring, etc., and like most good projects, it's never quite finished.
Begin with a standard IIb Forward Control.
Strip and refurbish the cab.
Add the rear tub, hardtop and sides from a Series 88 inch, and cut down the load bed.
With a few other items attended to, and a repaint, the first stage is complete.
A Series Marshall's ambulance rear body is obtained.
And added to the vehicle, finished and repainted.