Recent Releases: British Tilly light truck

[CompanyB]

Another recent release and acquisition from the venerable Ian Crouch.  The British Light Utility Truck "Tilly"


A nice little truck that would fit into many WW2, Pulp and Early war scenarios!

[aircav]

Thats brilliant   

[Damas]

Woof!  That's awesome.

[Wirelizard]

Very nice, and generic enough that those of us more into interwar pulp than WW2 could sneak them into our games too!

What year was this particular truck actually introduced?

[Damas]

I believe the original was based on the Austin 8, starting from 1939, 9,000 were produced until 1942 as a conversion of existing civilian cars.  There were other makes such as the Austin 10 and Morris 10 but these came in after the original Austin 8.

For pre-war use, a private conversion of an Austin 7 would be the most likely.

[Plynkes]

What year was this particular truck actually introduced?

That one's a Standard Tilly. They were based on civilian production cars and that one was based on the Standard Flying 12, I believe. The early models had the same rounded grille as the car it was based on, but that one has the later, more basic militarised flat grille, so I would say mid-war.


Unfortunately for you they were all war-time, not pre-war vehicles. They were something of an improvised measure, a way of utilising previously civilian production potential to help the war effort. So the government had the car companies make light military trucks based on their existing saloon car designs. It was the same concept of converting civilian production to military that gave us the Mosquito and the Flower Class corvette.