Claylands Vehicle Line Up.

An interesting line up of vehicles at 'Claylands', that includes the Isle of Wight's Peugeot 504 Estate Ambulance (ODL 558M). The IOW Ambulance Service was part of the IOW Fire Service until 31 March 1974.

A number of County and County Borough Services had a car (limo) within their fleet predominantly for long journey work. There were two Peugeot 504 estates on the Isle of Wight. One belong to the IOW County Ambulance Service and the other was operated by IOW St John Ambulance. If my memory serves me correct I think the call-sign was Sierra-Juliet ' Three-One-Eight '. The vehicle was N' registered and was virtually identical except that the beacon was mounted directly onto the roof (there was no top box sign).

The 2nd vehicle in the line up was Hampshire's Austin 3Ltr (based at Basingstoke), which was very similar to Portsmouth's except the horns were not roof mounted (unlike Portam-Kate). Also, the stretcher was a tubular aluminium (with a heavy duty vinyl canvas) and not the 'low profile' trolley type like Kate.

Finally the last vehicle was a Dorset Ambulance Service, Austin (BMC) 1800 (5 door hatch), used for sitting cases only. Not to be confused with the Austin-Maxi (which I think had 1500 and 1700 engine units). The Austin 1800 (there was also a 2200 version) had the BMC 'B series' engine and was also known as the land-crab.

Thanks to Ron Lilly for the photo and information.