Gutty, Mudlark and Champ
This page contains mainly Champs, it however also contains the Champ’s daddy (the Mudlark) and even its granddad (the Gutty) as well as the Austin attempt to retain their military orders with their copy of the Land Rover, called the Gipsy.
Most of the pictures on this page can be seen on the 1946 to 1959 page, some on the Blue-lights and others in the Fire Service pages, etc.
Austin Champ (Nuffield Gutty & Wolseley Mudlark)
The Austin Champ used a Rolls-Royce motor and was “Purpose built” for the Army, but despite its toughness was found to be too expensive (compared to its temporary place holder the Land Rover) and orders soon dwindled out. The body shape is based on the Wolseley Mudlark which looked virtually Identical to the Champ, except having rounded wings and a smooth bonnet and that (the Wolseley Mudlark) in turn was based on 1947 made prototypes called “Gutty’s” from Nuffield
Note the changed front and rear wings, then the Mudlark had quite ugly Bulbous wings. It also had smaller air vents on bonnet side and also a smooth Bonnet.
What is the connection between Nuffield and the later BLMC converged parties, Austin, Morris, Riley, MG and Wolseley? see footnote at end of this page.
The horror of many a NS Serviceman who got stroppy in the local bar, was the arrival of a single Champ Monkey wagon full with twenty “six-foot tall” RMPs, or was it six “twenty-foot tall” ones? - Never heard any Serviceman admit to being arrested by anything less. (In this drawing the Firefly one and the snow ones, I have managed to work out how to turn on the headlights...)
With snorkel fitted and raised (and vents on the C11 closed) and if driven by an octopus, the Champ could easily ford depths of 6’6” for quite long periods. If driven by a human this depth, or the time driven underwater was reduced to the height of the shortest crewman, or the length of time the driver and crew could hold their breath!
I think it was called “Cold and Wet Weather Kit” because even when fitted the crew were cold and wet!
The Champ was odd in that that did not have a reverse gear in it’s gearbox... Yes true, the Gearbox only had five forward gears. Reverse was achieved by a mechanical solution in the differential so that when engaged the Champ then also had five reverse gears and could go backwards just as fast as forwards... in You tube you can find film of one going 50 mph backwards on a narrow country road - Paced by a Series 1 Land Rover. It was this ability to go backwards for long times that made it suitable to carry the Jeep (WW2) line laying gear. When the drums on the back were empty, the vehicle turned around and continued backwards.
The first Line-Laying Champs simply used transferred kit from the Jeep With loads of extra holes and welding. Later versions used the normally free standing Apparatus Cable Laying No. 8 bolted to floor the inside of the champ, or the No. 11 clamped onto the back .
The “Trailer 10cwt.” carried spare reels as well as tools and crook-sticks. Into this a Linesman was expected to stand and guide the cable while the Champ drove, every bump threw out a crew member, even when they sat on the side frames, and the poor linesman had to “surf” to cope with not only the left and right movement, but the exaggerated up and down movements of the rear floor, in opposition to the movement of the back of the champ.
For longer patrols without trailer or Genny, the vehicle was fitted with carrying frames to carry spare 12V 45AH Radio Accumulators, these were in wooden boxes and quite heavy to swap out. The Vickers gun also needed some spare coolant cans that were carried on frames at the front or back. The above has the hand winch at the front and extended bumper-
The gunners armour was on a swivel frame that turned with the gun, so had deeper sides for more protection when shooting to the side, than the drivers plate. The crude modification was a rush job (due to the Suez Crisis) and only about 40 or so of these were made. Also they (and the Champ in general) proved to be useless in the desert, then the Champ even without armour or load was too heavy and had too little ground clearance, and so kept getting bogged down. To be fair, the reason was the Army’s insistence on fully independent suspension then the Champ was designed primarily to be a stable gun platform and remain stable when diagonally traversing a ploughed field at 30 mph. Land rover with its leaf suspension could not do that without leaping around as if it’s Axles had fleas!
I want to thank Michael Buckley for sending me some very useful information including how to determine the Numbering system of the 1950s. So as a “thank you” to him, here is a “Mike B Champ Special” drawing that I have made for him...
Michael Buckley’s restored Austin Champ FFW/FFR “67 BE 99” with C11 and C42
If champ had won the selection war against Land Rover, maybe this is how the next model would have looked like?
It is made just for fun. It contains elements of the Gutty, the Mudlark, the Champ and the Gipsy, and my guess as to how Austin’s designers thought and worked in the 1950s and 60s
The Gipsy was Austin’s late attempt to recover some of the Market from Land Rover with their all Steel version of a Land Rover look-alike...
What is the connection between Nuffield and the later created BMC/BLMC? - The Nuffield Organisation was named after its founder, William Morris, the 1st Viscount of Nuffield, and formed as a strongly military (even though it also covered civilian vehicles) vehicle production group in 1938 as the merger of Nuffield's Morris Motor Company (already having acquired Wolseley Motors in 1927), another of Nuffield's companies the MG Car Company and Riley. These “Badges later joined Austin as part of the famous (infamous) BMC/BLMC. Morris Motors Ltd included Morris Commercial Cars which made the Morris Commercial 8 used by the army before and during WW2. The Nuffield Organisation merged with the Austin Motor Company to form the British Motor Corporation in 1952. Which is why the Champ was eventually called an Austin.