Tank Chats #100 | Rolls-Royce Armoured Car | The Tank Museum

"The germans didn't turn up for some reason or other". Trust David Fletcher to make the understatement of the century. 😁

Reasons to visit bovington museum: 1° - David Fletcher 2° - David Willey 3° - the tanks

Man, this really is the Rolls-Royce of armoured cars.

The model should come with a to-scale figure of David Fletcher to stand in the back. Ok, Tank Museum, time to produce Fletchers in pointing mode in various popular model scales.

"Yeah I volunteered at Tank fest" "Oh wow what was your job?" "Tugging on David Fletcher's trousers to tell him he'd finished"

Her sister in Ireland celebrated her 100th birthday on Tuesday

A few months ago I bought a couple of books on the Rolls Royce Armored cars and was surprised that there was no Tank Chat for the Rolls by Mr. Fletcher.I wrote to the Tank Museum and they said that there was one scheduled. This video was well worth the wait. Mr. Fletcher's stories and wry comments are both informative and entertaining. Beside the Haynes manual, Mr. Fletcher has authored "The Rolls Royce Armoured Car" published by Osprey, and "War Cars" by Her Majesty's Stationery Office.The latter, published in 1987, has a photo on the back cover of a much younger David Fletcher with a much smaller mustache. Thank you Mr. Fletcher for this video.

06:10 'drove up and down the East coast looking for Germans … who never turned up for some reason' epic understatement indeed :)

David Fletcher: the Lorax of tanks.

Us Irish had the Rolls in service until 1944 because we ran out of spare tyres. You can tell we loved driving them just as much as David!

it's not forbidden to run the exhaust cutouts in the UK to avoid frightening people, it's forbidden to avoid embarrassing Rolls Royce by having people hear a noisy Rolls.

Seeing Mr Fletcher standing in the car in a stoic fashion is simply spectacular.

A trully iconic car... and to see it's still moving around, after 100 years ...amazing.

"Hopefully without de-bagging me in the process". David's slight of phrase is one of my favorite things about these chats.

Another fascinating video. My grandfather drove these vehicles in the 1920-1921 whilst stationed with No 7 Armoured Car Company Tank Corps at Peshawar. He then went on to become an Instructor at Bovington until he was medically discharged in 1931 having been instructing on a vickers medium tank on 2nd May 1930 when it lost control whilst travelling from Farnborough to Lulworth and travelled through a barrier into the canal at Bull Grove Nr Winchester. (I believe that at the time instructors traveled on the turret of the tank with legs either side of the gun to enable them to speak to the driver). The barrier consisted of a horizontal metal pole which crushed my grandfathers foot and after infection set in he had to have his leg amputated below the knee. His other claim was that my grandmother used to do Laurence of Arabia's laundry as he was stationed at Bovington Camp as T E Shaw in 1923. My grandfather died when I was 6 in 1965 and I wish that he had lived longer so that I could have understood more of his service, He was in the Army from 1911-1931 and despite having to leave on medical grounds was always a military man at heart.

Special note to North American audience. "Debagger" is UK slang for removing someone's trousers by force as a humiliation ... but I still spit my coffee across my key board anyway. Great episode as usual. Terrific seeing the interactions of this particular vehicle with The Queen and events over the years.

What a gem of a video! I love the personal tales about it, and the accompanying photographs. Thanks for making and sharing! I think I'll take a look at that book too.

David Fletcher, a most sympathetic british gentelman, as well as, his deep knowledge of what he is talking about. 👍👍

I could litsen to David Fletcher telling stories all day. Such a wonderful man.

I always loved those cars. I 100% agree that there is something remarkable about them that makes them special. The fact that you can have a car (early models) on spoked wheels, with 80hp engine, two wheel drive and carrying around 4 tonnes of armour, yet it stil can work in conditions that at least 50% of today's cars wouldn't be able to and even fight in those conditions as well, is just mindblowing.