The record
In July 1949 the Automobile Association bought its first Land Rover, an 80-inch Series I registered KLX 770, for the after-dark breakdown squad it ran from Bayham Street in Camden Town. The Night Patrols answered members' calls across London when the daytime motorcycle patrols had gone home, and the Land Rover — fitted with a two-way radio, a vice on the tailboard, jerry cans and a slave battery for jump starts — could carry the kit a motorcycle combination could not and get to a stranded car in any weather. It proved the type for the AA, which went on to run Land Rovers for decades. KLX 770 was restored in the 1980s and has since been displayed at Coventry Transport Museum and at the AA's Basingstoke headquarters as part of the association's heritage fleet.
The museum photographs show the restored vehicle: AA yellow with the outer faces of the front wings in black, a khaki canvas tilt running over the open cab, a yellow ROAD SERVICE board with AA badges below the windscreen, wire mesh over the grille and headlamps, the AA badge on the left wing front and on both rear tub sides, the black KLX 770 plate on the right wing front, a radio aerial on the right screen pillar, black wheels and a galvanised bumper. The registry model reproduces that vehicle and opens the new Breakdown group in the special-vehicle selector, as the queue notes requested.
