The record
Herbert Lomas had been a wheelwright since 1901, and Herbert Lomas Ambulances Ltd was registered in Manchester in 1913; from its works at Handforth, near Wilmslow in Cheshire, the firm built ambulance bodies on Austin, Bedford, Morris and Land Rover chassis until 1981. Its Land Rover ambulances ran from the Series II — a 1958 Series II 109, SUN 281, is recorded — through the Series IIA years of 1961 to 1971, and Land Rover granted the conversion Approved status in 1965. The body is the point: a rounded, fully integrated coachbuilt cab and rear in place of the Land Rover's own panels, offered with a glass-reinforced plastic roof raised to take four stretchers, with full air conditioning for hot climates, and in completely-knocked-down form for assembly overseas. A 1968 Commercial Motor article had the firm exporting ambulances to eighty countries over the previous twenty years, and the Navy and the Royal Marines were among its British users.
The vehicle behind this record was built in 1965 and kept by Lomas as a demonstrator until it was sold in 1967. Finished in Limestone, it later gained North Riding Ambulance Service badges for appearances in the ITV period drama The Royal, and those markings are what it carries — a dressing for television, not evidence of North Riding service. It came back to Britain as one of thirty-one Land Rovers recovered from a Norwegian collection by John Craddock, featured in Land Rover Owner in August 2004, and has since been rebuilt on a galvanised chassis with an unleaded cylinder head; its odometer read 97,300 miles when the dealer sold it. Inside are three strip lights, a privacy screen, twin white reversing lamps and the original seating.
Lomas published no production totals for its Land Rover bodies, and none has been established since.
