The Centaur
This Landrover was half Stage1 and half light tank. The front end was all Solihull's finest but the rear was a shortened version of the Scorpion light tank tracked bogie. The resulting half-track had a very high payload and formidable offroad potential but didn't attract military orders, so the project was stopped in 1980 after one more prototype had been built with 110 front end.
6 prototypes of this superb vehicles were built. On the first 2, P1 and P2 work begun on October 1978, the other 4 at about one month intervals. P1 to P3 were right hand drive, the other 3 left hand drive. P1 and P4 were 12 Volts, the other combined 12/24 Volts. All were initially designed as softtops.
They suffered many problems even being straight from the standard line for most parts. The repeatedly suffered power losses, front prop shaft faillures and burnt clutches were reported. Front axle half shafts failed often but could be traced back to a faulty design. Steering on road at very high speeds was superb. In slow goin and offroad the vehicle is horribly directionless which is quite obvious as the tracks do not help in steering. The tracks have no return rollers, so at any speed they hit the bottom of body. The noise is deafening, LR measured 108 decibels! Also the vibrations are very annoying, causing the rear differential mounting to crack. Most of these problems would have been solveable but the British army could not decide on placing a large order. Meanwhile the airlifted units and rapid ground forces gained importance and no other army wanted to take the sirk of buying them first.
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P5, completed in late summer 79' was mainly used as demonstrator. It was seen on exercise in Germany and was trialled with an anti-personnel mine discharger. In spring of 1980 it got a 20mm cannon fitted on a cargo bed. Later is was flown to the Persian Gulf for more demonstartions. Today it belongs to the Tank Museum in Bovington. This the one shown in the picture above (Billings 1998)