Military Lightweight Forum

Hi All.
I own a 2a lightweight who’s reg was 26 RN 91.
Would I be correct in saying it is ex Royal Navy?
If so, who can I contact for its history.
Many thanks in advance. Roger.

As far as I know it's not possible to get information on RN vehicles as the numbers were passed from vehicle to vehicle, ie reused.

Ok. Thanks Hibbo.
That’s a bit of a bugger.
How about using chassis number?
Anyone any more ideas?

A large amount of RN B cards were held by Wally Dugan at the Museum of Army Transport in Beverley, when he closed these were transferred first to Deepcut and then the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. I spoke to them about 15 years ago and they had if I remember correctly about 6 box loads of paperwork.
A bloke called Tony Abrahams was looking at working with them back in 2014 to set up a database much like the Deepcut one but I don't know if it ever happened. Tony estimated that there were around 20,000 vehicle records in the 6 boxes.

The Museum used to have a reading room open for research by appointment so it may still be possible to get hold of the records for your vehicle but it may mean you have to pay a researcher or attend in person by appointment.

As to reusing Reg Numbers, yes it did happen, but it didn't always happen. I think it may have happened when vehicles replaced damaged destroyed vehicles and may have happened when Reg numbers hadn't been used for several decades as the RN no longer used that type of vehicle.

Yours, 26RN91 was from a contract for 9 possibly RHD GS Models regs 26RN85-93. The supplier of this information I have found to be inaccurate as to the models but pretty accurate as to the Registration. I would suggest that if I can get hold of this information then the information on your vehicle is still held at the NMRN in Portsmouth.

As the Chassis numbers would have been in sequence with the registrations you can test this information on the RLC website if they still do a chassis number search. If they don't have the record for the other chassis number, it's likely the information is correct.

26RN89 was previously owned by a member of this forum who had documentation that it was built in 1971, you can see the thread here clicky. Doesn't get you any further but does tell you that other vehicles from your batch are about.

The advert for 26RN88 referred to in the thread is a 24v so the batch being all GS's is wrong.