A Couple of months ago we published details about the above vehicle - the Landmaster - Since then we have been contacted by a number of people who had either owned these vehicles, seen them being driven around or new the original developers.

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Sean Butler Lee wrote in with the following details:

The prototype vehicles were made at Trelavour Road Garage, St. Dennis, Cornwall, under the direction of Stan Metherell, the then owner of the garage. The vehicles were based on Dodge pick-up truck parts.

One vehicle was used by Western Excavating (now Imerys) as a service vehicle. This vehicle was fitted with a Perkins diesel engine, and was a fawny-brown colour. Another vehicle was used by Devon and Cornwall Police in Cornwall and was fitted with a Chrysler engine.

The Western Excavating vehicle was driven on one occasion by my father, Robert Butler-Lee. He believes it was fitted with automatic transmission. The original 16" wheels were prone to cracking on rough terrain, and so were eventually replaced with modular steel ones.

I've been out to Trelavour Road Garage and seen the Land Master they've got there. It's the ex-Police one, and it's fitted with a 5.3 litre Chrysler V8.

The chassis was made of tubular steel so that when it went over bumps and steep angles, any dirt on top of the chassis rails would fall off, unlike Land Rovers. There is definitely one Land Master still on the road in use. It's located in Kent, and has been fitted with a VM turbodiesel engine.

The Forward Control variant may be of interest to you and your readers. The prototype went in for MoD testing, and it passed every single test they put it through. First of all it did several tests with a tall one ton weight on the back to see how it performed on- and off-road. The MoD then decided to test the vehicle with a Rapier missile launcher on the back to see how it performed, so the Land Master underwent heavy modifications including the installation of a launcher and retractable stabiliser legs. The MoD then decided they'd like the missile to have a 360-degree turn radius, so sketches were drawn up to see how it would work. The final decision was to go with a split cab so that it would fold down around the drivetrain. However, this conversion never took place due to financial problems.

The Government actually promised money to Trelavour Road Garage for development work on the Land Master, but never delivered. Hence, they sold the rights to the Land Master to the Welsh firm to avoid going into bankruptcy.