The record
The area electricity boards each ran a fleet of Land Rovers for the line gangs who kept the overhead network up, and the South Eastern Electricity Board — SEEBOARD, formed under nationalisation in 1947–48 to supply Kent, Sussex and much of Surrey from its headquarters at Hove — was no exception. Most were ordinary 109-inch trucks and cherrypickers. This one is the unusual member of the fleet: a Stage 1 V8 converted to six-wheel drive and fitted with a tensioning winch, the drum-and-brake unit used when conductors are strung between pylons and have to be pulled to the correct sag across country that no road reaches. The extra axle carried the winch's weight and gave the traction to hold a line under load.
The documented vehicle is A457 SHU, registered in the 1983–84 year, which places it at the end of Stage 1 production: the Stage 1 was Land Rover's 1979–85 stopgap that fitted the 3.5-litre Rover V8 and the Range Rover's permanent four-wheel-drive transmission into the Series III body, recognisable by its flush front with the grille brought forward level with the wings. The photograph on which this model is based, from the Electricity Board Land Rovers archive, shows a truck cab with the spare wheel on the bonnet, a tan canvas tilt over the load body behind, twin rear axles close-coupled under the bed, dark green paint with plain bed sides, SEEBOARD in red across the bed side above the rear wheels and SOUTH EASTERN ELECTRICITY in three small red lines at the front of the bed, and a white front number plate. The tensioning winch itself sits under the tilt and is not visible; the small fairlead on this model's tailboard is the minimum fitting that would let it work and is inferred rather than documented.
Who carried out the six-wheel conversion is not recorded in the source consulted. Several British firms built 6×6 Stage 1s in the early 1980s, most on a lengthened chassis with a bogie of two driven rear axles, which is the layout modelled here (shared with the registry's Hotspur Sandringham 139-inch geometry); the actual wheelbase and builder of A457 SHU remain unconfirmed. How many the board had is likewise unknown — the source shows one — and its fate is not recorded. SEEBOARD became Seeboard plc at privatisation in 1990 and its network now belongs to UK Power Networks.
