Locked & loaded

Land-Rover's SAS prototype and Minerva's Blindé vehicle were built to lend agility reconnaisance and versatility to Europe's special forces

- SIMON HUCKNALL

The sun is intense enough to scorch any patch of exposed flesh. The ribbon of track we're driving along is arid and cracked, and even at 20mph we're generating spectacular white plumes of dust - big enough to alert anyone of our presence long before we heave into view. But that's okay: an M2 Browning heavy machinegun, armed with 50-calibre shells, is within reach, and reconnaissance smudger Max, perched behind, has got my back with a rocket launcher at his side. There's no windscreen, so goggles are mandatory, especially if you're in convoy - which we are right now, small chalk pellets occasionally firing up like flak from the tyres of the vehicle in front. There's one more seemingly impossible ascent to climb before we reach our rendezvous, and it's perilous: only a little wider than our tracks, and topped by a blind crest. Revs rise to a roar, all wheels scrabbling for traction, but we make our vantage point intact, no enemy in sight...

But then, why would there be in a chalkpit in deepest Sussex on one of the hottest days of 2023? It may be a lame facsimile of the missions this rare and special Land-Rover correct designation: Trucks 1/4 Ton 4x4 General Service SAS Rover Mk3-undertook more than half a century ago, but it serves as a fascinating insight all the same. More so because 43 BR 70 (its original War Office registration) is one of two prototypes that begat a production run of eight bespoke Series One Land-Rovers for the Special Air Service (SAS) in the mid-'50s. It's also one of only two such vehicles that survive the other resides at the Dunsfold Collection - both of which have operational histories mired in secrecy to this day.