Ford Mk V armoured car

The Ford Mk V armoured car was a light armored car, built in Ireland by Thompson & Son of Hanover Works, County Carlow.^[1][2][3]

Ford Mk V armoured car
A renovated Ford Mk VI armoured car, similar and based upon the Ford Mk V, painted in UN colours for a commemorative event in Dublin, 2016
Type	Armoured car
Place of origin	Ireland
Production history
Designed	1940
Manufacturer	Thompson & Son, Carlow
Produced	1940
No. built	14
Variants	Ford Mk VI (from 1941)
Specifications
Length	14 ft 8 inches
Width	6 ft 7 inches
Height	8 ft 3 inches
Crew	3
Armor	.5 inch
Main armament	Hotchkiss .303 machine gun
Engine	3,621cc Ford V8 petrol 85bhp[1]

Specifications

The Ford Mk V was built with .5 inch mild steel plate, onto a Ford chassis of 122 inches.^[4] Fitted with an 85 horsepower petrol Ford V8 3,621 cc engine,^[4] the Mark V was much smaller, cheaper to build and had better performance than its predecessor the GSR Ford Mk IV armoured car.

When empty of all unessential equipment, the Mark V weighed just over five tons, and had a max speed of 45 km per hour (28 mph) and a range of 150 km (93 miles).^[4] After the prototype was built, inspected and passed, the remaining 13 Ford Mk Vs were built and sold by 1954.

Fourteen were built in total with Peerless armoured car turrets and Hotchkiss .303 machine guns fitted. The vehicles were designed by Maj. J. V. Lawless and Comdt. A. W. Mayne, using ideas taken from the Rolls-Royce armoured car as well as from the Leyland armoured car.

Variants

A later variant, the Ford Mk VI armoured car, was also built by the Thompson company in Carlow.^[5] 28 of the Ford Mk VI versions were built, with (unlike the Ford Mk Vs which had Peerless turrets) new turrets, modeled on a Landsverk design, built by the Thompson company themselves^[5][6]