The record
Harvey Frost & Co., founded in London around 1900 and later of Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, was one of Britain's pioneer vehicle-recovery equipment houses - first distributing recovery gear, then manufacturing its own cranes, tow poles, winches and garage equipment. The firm became best known for the lightweight hinged-boom recovery cranes, in capacities from half a ton to two tons, that garages across Britain bolted to the back of light trucks and long-wheelbase Land Rovers to make compact breakdown trucks; a Land Rover with a Harvey Frost crane was for decades the archetypal rural garage recovery vehicle.
The registry's reference vehicle is VPB 28F, a 1968 Series IIA long-wheelbase pickup (chassis 25114123D, 2.3-litre petrol) supplied new with a Harvey Frost 30cwt pickup crane - catalogue number 21. It worked continuously as the recovery truck of Clacy & Sons, a family motor engineering business in Hampshire, remaining in that single ownership for 52 years until it passed to the Land Rover Heritage Collection. Along the way it gained the practical modifications of a working recovery vehicle: spare headlights set into the front wings for towing at night, a modern amber light bar, and an open-backed weather canopy over the rear deck made by an Andover body shop soon after purchase - fitted, the story goes, to stop the tub filling with leaves.
The collection presents the vehicle unrestored, valuing it as a wholly honest and genuine working survivor rather than a show truck - a document of how thousands of Series Land Rovers earned their keep in the recovery trade.
