Ford Mk V armoured car

The Ford Mk V armoured car was a light armored car built in Ireland by Thompson and Son of Hanover Works, County Carlow. It used half inch mild steel plate on a 122 inch Ford chassis with an 85 horsepower petrol Ford V8 of 3,621 cc, and it was much smaller, cheaper to build and better performing than its predecessor, the GSR Ford Mk IV armoured car. Empty of unessential equipment it weighed just over five tons, with a top speed of 45 kilometres per hour and a range of 150 kilometres. After the prototype was built, inspected and passed, the other 13 were built and sold by 1954, making fourteen in total, with Peerless armoured car turrets and Hotchkiss .303 machine guns. Major J V Lawless and Commandant A W Mayne designed it using ideas from the Rolls-Royce and Leyland armoured cars, and a later Mk VI variant, 28 of which were built, had new turrets modelled on a Landsverk design.