The record
When the M1 opened in November 1959 the Royal Automobile Club set up a Motorway Patrol to cover it, with Series II 109-inch Land Rover hard tops designated Radio Patrol Mobile Service Units. Each carried two-way radio and a rigid towing device so a broken-down car could be hauled off the carriageway to a safe point with its driver only steering — a novelty on Britain's first long motorway, where stopping was dangerous and there were no recovery services yet. The blue Land Rovers with their white roof boards became a familiar sight on the hard shoulder through the early 1960s.
YYF 365 is documented by Oxford Diecast's 1:76 model 76LAN2017, the reference here: RAC blue all over including the roof and wheels, a white RADIO PATROL board topped by the RAC diamond on the cab roof front, an amber beacon on the roof, RADIO RAC PATROL and MOBILE SERVICE UNIT in white on the hard-top sides, RAC diamonds on both wing fronts, a chrome bumper and black plates. The registry model reproduces that vehicle in the Breakdown group; the number of Motorway Patrol units is not given in the sources.
