question Northern Ireland Covert vehicles

[robin craig]

It is well documented that various vehicles of the ordinary civvy varieties were used by the military during the Northern Ireland operations.

 

Makes and types such as Escort, Cortina, Granada, Transit and many more were in service, some modified even armoured.

 

The question that comes to mind about these is did any survive and who has them?

 

I'm thinking the chances are slim to none but one never knows unless one asks.

 

Here is hoping.

 

R

[recymech66]

I know that a lot of the vehicles bought/used for specific ops by SF were disposed of i.e crushed once the op finished. But as for the general CMV's I can't help you.

[Tony B]

You do ocassionally see Discret armoured civillian vehicles for sale at Withams. But always 'For export outside the EEC'.

[Brucie]

It would be very difficult to find any of these vehicles as most of them had Northern Irish registrations and were controlled by a seperate department within Northern Ireland with civilians working for the British Military. The registrations were changed on a regular basis as well as being spayed on a regular basis and regularly swopped among bases/Units in the province to try to maintain there covert role. Also a lot of them had unofficial mods carried out on them, I remember fiting a brake light cut out switch on one of them just so we could stop at night when carrying out covert operations without alerting anyone, fitting make do holsters to carry handguns so we could access them quickly if needed etc.

[fv1609]

Although of course they would never display them, they were issued for administrative purchases with registrations in the 'BT' series. These crop up here & there in auction catalogues, although not all BT registrations where necessarily undercover.

 

(In fact I have 27BT68 & 27BT95 in my garage but they have those registrations for different reasons)

[robin craig]

This is all great info and confirms a lot of what I suspected but it is good to hear from those who actually know.

 

Wonder if any were sold off and people don't realise what they own.

 

R

[fv1609]

There were at least 2,500 NI purchased second hand cars with BT registrations between 1972-83. I imagine there was a fairly high turnover to minimise the chance of getting recognised in their role. What happened to them I have no idea.

[wally dugan]

I have been watching and would like to make the following comments...

 

regards any of these vehicles surviving in 1991 the museum of army transport received a MK 1 Ford Granada, which had been used for covert operations in Northern Ireland. It came as a non runner, but we soon got it going and had great fun with it...for a while.

 

In 1997-98, we received a request to let the MOD have the vehicle back, for some testing. To the best of my knowledge it was returned to RAF Honington were I believe 2 Regiment were based. Along with a UAZ469 which appeared that we borrowed of Saddam.

 

so its possible that at least 1 car should be about.

 

Yours, Wally.

[Rick W]

If memory serves right I'm sure John Marchant wrote an article about some of these in an issue of Windscreen.

[Gerry275]

Try this link- http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?27872-Copper-bronze-escort-mk1-rs2000-from-mod-ruddington&highlight=RS2000

 

There is one about

 

Gerry

[johnhughes]

During the troubles the vast number of unmarked vehicles used were basic civi spec with no mods what so ever and were used for "liason" duties in and around barracks. they were regularly shuffled around bases and most were disposed of via local auctions after 1-2 years no matter what the mileage, without a registration but a MOD 654 disposal form. Everything could be used including a bright red boxy LADA (the old FIAT), mini's, VW vans, anything that didn't stick out!!. Now days they are kept a lot longer or are part of the hired white fleet given local regs.

 

"Covert" mods could be anything from a 24v LR 109 FFR given a hard top and sprayed (properly) marine blue and white to be used as a discrete communications repeater, to high tech Batmobiles with some quite exotic mods inc liveried 1.3l bodyshells with 2.2 or 2.8l engines inside to give all out speed or allow for the weight of discrete armouring. Most were stripped and returned to the mainland for disposal. A couple of cars are known to still exist in private hands in NI, inc a RUC unit.

 

:-\

 

j

[tim gray]

We used a Ford Cargo box body for a while to shift stores around etc, brand new off the shelf with no particular mods as i recall , an SMG fitted into the glove box particularly well .Do any of you recall the bloody awfull attempt to "civililianise" the MOD issue vehicles? I recall seeing a bronze metallic bedford 4 tonner with a blue coloured canvas , an equally hideous yellow tipper truck, and a purple 8 wheeled foden truck. Apart from the bronze colour i presume the rest were produced from the gloss available from stores, blue , red, yellow, white. Understandably when offered one we "politely" declined.And for you old lags out thier the well known game of spot the squady ( white socks)

[armouredfarmer]

I consulted a friend of mine on the subject, his reply was "Seem to remember most of the ones I handed back didn't work anymore. Best was a Renault Laguna (lots of space to stash stuff)"

[rog8811]

Wonder if any were sold off and people don't realise what they own.

 

(lots of space to stash stuff)"

 

Mrs rog's dads next door neighbor bought a used Hillman avenger many years ago, the drivers side window was partly jammed so he decided to investigate. He took the inner panel off and found that the door was packed with something "suspicious".

It turns out that the car had both doors packed with explosives, the car was investigated insitu and found to have no detonators fitted so the military carted it away, the owner was asked if he wanted the car back, he declined.

[Matt W]

I was at Ashchurch in the late 80s, any civvy cars returned from NI were either sent straight for scrap or went out to the ranges for use as target. I think the EOD Centre also got a few to practice on.

[Yorkie370]

On my first visit to the Province in 1980 I had to pick up a Bedford MK TTF from the depot at Kinnegar in east Belfast. One of the sheds contained a number of civilian cars being converted to CMV. One chap was seen to be painting tyre pressure numbers onto the wheel-arches, in the spirit of the sometimes-anal methods employed by the military. A number of our unit's panel vans and buses had them so marked.

 

Much later on another tour I got to drive a Senator from Fermanagh to Aldergove - five of us, complete with three HK53s, two GPMG and a brace of pistols and a mountain of sundry kit. The 'sleeping-policemen' around Aldergrove made short work of the expanded polystyrene tiles stuck to the underside.

[billh35]

There was a constant campaign to swap identities on covert vehicles in NI during Op Banner so as to mystify anyone looking too closely. Civilian number plates were changed regularly and vehicle locations swapped. There was even a "shadow" fleet based in south west Scotland where if a vehicle was damaged or destroyed in NI, a "clone" could be shipped to replace it in use almost immediately.