Conversions. Cuthbertson Tracked Land Rover

I took a visit with the South Wales Land Rover Club to the Gaydon British Car Museum recently and as it's Cold and Dark and often it's Wet when I get home, I am spending a little time reading a few more things about some of the Land Rovers I saw on that visit.

One of the more unusual vehicles in terms of drive train is the Cuthbertson Tracked Land Rover 

James A Cuthbertson Ltd of Biggar, Lanarkshire Scotland were an early manufacturer of rubber tracks, dating back to World War II. They took a standard Land Rover and fitted removable tracks to it to create the Cuthbertson Land Rover. This greatly lowered the ground pressure, to 1.9 lbs/sq in (0.2Nm), and allowed the Land Rover to traverse snow or swampy ground.

The Land Rover wheel is replaced with a sprocket which drives the rubber track around lower rubber wheels which are attached to a subframe which takes the pressure off the normal Land Rover running gear.

From information on-line it seems that around 15 were made which range in age from apparently a Series 1 version in the late 1950's (see Cuthbertson website link above) through Series II and Series III vehicles (of which there are many pictures on-line) with both short and long wheelbases used.

From various video's and on-line resources it seems the tracks are not good on road and very noisy on hard surfaces and are not good at "steps" where there is a high rock or ridge to climb, so not a perfect vehicle for all terrains, but they do seem to deal with the soft stuff very well.

There are a number of interesting pictures and some information on their use by the bomb disposal team here

The excellent Remlr site has a set of pictures of an Australian trial Cuthbertson

Here's a video of one in action in some very muddy conditions and it does not miss a beat in progression

And there is an excellently old fashioned Pathe News film where one can be seen at about 34 seconds

I've enjoyed reading about them, but I don't think I want one which is quite good news as I don't think one will fit on the drive.

I have to admit that a vehicle that claims to be demountable, but seems like you need a second vehicle to carry the accessory items seems not practical, but it seems the idea has not been lost because Sir Ranulph Feinnes had 110 Land Rovers fitted with Mattrack tracks for an expedition. They were successful in the prototype runs, but the expedition was cancelled

You can read about that here: -

http://www.lr-mad.co.uk/en/global-expedition-tracked-land-rovers
http://www.maxadventure.co.uk/land-rover-global-expedition/