One of the most interesting vehicles to arrive on the MV scene last year was Paul Visser’s beautifully restored Loyd Carrier. John Blackman took a close look.

It’s quite amazing when you consider that, some six decades after the event, rare and unusual WW2 vehicles still occasionally pop up on the show scene. CMV has recently featured several that appeared during 2011, and here is yet another, a 1942 Loyd TT Mk I Carrier owned by Paul Visser from Winkel in the Netherlands, where he runs a small private museum.

Back in 2008 Paul saw an advert on Milweb placed by another Dutchman who had a Loyd Carrier and wanted to exchange it for a Studebaker Weasel. As luck would have it, Paul had a Weasel but was looking for an interesting project. ‘I visited the guy and saw this beauty in an old chicken barn and we  made a deal,’ Paul recalls. Not that the Loyd was as beautiful then as it is now, but it was reasonably complete bar a few details and the fact that the engine was a German-made Ford V8, rather than the British powerplant that an early Loyd should have.

The Loyd Carrier certainly made the most of pre-existing components when developed by Vivian Loyd in 1939. The engine, gearbox and transmission were all taken from a Fordson 15cwt 4x2, as was the chassis, which was simply turned back to front, so placing the engine and radiator at the rear of the vehicle.

The Loyd’s front axle (what was the Fordson’s rear) was simply inverted to reverse the  direction of the drive. Both the front drive sprockets and rear idlers, which also featured sprockets, were equipped with brake drums which the driver activated via levers to steer the vehicle. Brake the left-hand sprockets and the Carrier slewed to the left, brake the right-hand sprockets and it would slew to the right. Could anything be simpler?

For the full feature pick up the April issue of Classic Military Vehicle magazine.
Back issues available here