Hi Neil,
I can recall seeing this vehicle in the Aircraft Engineering hangar at Cranfield Institute of Technology in the mid '80s. At that time Cranfield were testing the suitability of radial tyres for use on aircraft and I remember seeing it being driven up and down the runway conducting tyre tests at that time.
I have found an article in a copy of "Aerogram" which was the in-house newsletter of CIT at the time that mainly describes the tyre test, but also give a brief description of the vehicle.
Quote:- The tyre temperature trials were performed using the MOD Heavy Load Friction Vehicle (HLFV) which is based at Cranfield. The vehicle is a 12 tonne 6x6 chassis normally seen on Saracen armoured cars and fire tenders. Major modifications to the vehicle have seen the removal of the centre pair of wheels and the installation of a centrally mounted pantograph jacking system on to which an aircraft wheel can be mounted. The wheel can be loaded up to 44kN and driven along the runway at speeds up to 90km/h.
I can't find any other info on the vehicle, but I'll walk over to the hangar next week and see if anyone remembers anything else, or even where it is now.
Cheers, Barry