Military Vehicles Magazine • OCTOBER 2019 35
on August 1,1951. Austin completed the fi rst production vehicle
was exactly one month later on September 1.
Production was undertaken at the company’s factory at Cof-
ton Hackett, near Birmingham, where the entire fl eet of Champs
continued to be built until May 1956. When production was halt-
ed, almost 13,000 Champs had been built, leaving a shortfall of
just over 2,000 vehicles from the contract.
THE CHAMP IN SERVICE
The Champ entered service too late to be used during the
Korean War, but some vehicles were sent to the war zone where
units put them through a series of trials for evaluation. One op-
erational deployment in which the Champ saw service was the
short-lived Suez “Crisis” in 1956.
Earlier, in 1953, the French Army evaluated the Champ. The
vehicles were each fi tted with a one-ton capacity winch for these
trials. In the end, the French did not accept the vehicle.
As the British army’s service fl eet grew during the Cold War
era, Champs were sent to units overseas, including the British
Army of the Rhine (BAOR) in West Germany, the Middle East,
and Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the Champ never proved to be
a popular vehicle with the troops, being prone to toppling over,
because it was “top heavy.” It did have some good points, such as
having a heater for the crew, but, otherwise, it is not remembered
with any affection by National Servicemen who had to endure
the diffi culties involved with mechanically servicing the vehicle.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The letters “CT” in the army terminology was an abbrevia-
tion vehicle for CombaT. The FFW stood for “Fitted For Wire-
less.” In 1956, though, modifi cations would lead to this changing
to FFR to indicate, “Fitted For Radio.”
The Champ was produced in three versions. “WN” was the
military version The WN2 version was also a military vehicle,
basically the WN1, but fi tted with an Austin A90 engine. The