4×4S.ORGTHE REGISTRY BASE MODEL · 1941–45
BASE MODELUnited Kingdom

FWD Heavy Utility “Box” (1941–45)

Britain’s only four-wheel-drive passenger car of the war: Car, Heavy Utility, 4×4 (FWD), Humber — the Box — on a 2,838 mm wheelbase, built from 1941 to 1945. About 6,500 vehicles were made across the whole FWD series, which also covered 8-cwt trucks, ambulances and armoured cars.

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Sources & evidence
FWD Heavy Utility “Box” (1941–45) — A 1942 Humber Heavy Utility.AlfvanBeem · CC0 ↗
MODEL LINEFWDBUILT BYHumber Limited (Rootes Group), CoventryPRODUCED1941–45PRODUCTIONAbout 6,500 across the FWD seriesLAYOUT4 wheels · 112″

The record

The Box was the staff car of choice for senior officers who had to get to places a saloon could not: Montgomery used one. Its slab-sided estate body gave room for maps and a wireless, and the four-wheel drive gave it a working life well beyond the roads.

Specification

MANUFACTURED1941–45
ENGINERootes six-cylinder petrolRootes six-cylinder petrol
PRODUCTION RUNAbout 6,500 across the FWD series
COUNTRY OF ORIGINUnited Kingdom
STATUSout of production
RECORD KINDBase model
MODEL LINEFWD
FAMILYFWD
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE112″
BODY STYLEHeavy utility (Box)
VARIANTS3

Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.

Body styles & colours

Body style

Factory colours

  • Deep Bronze Green
  • Light Stone

Codes on hover. Hex values are representative approximations of period paint unless a source states a measured value.

AI rendering impression

An AI rendering impression starts from a 3D model of this vehicle, which an image model then paints into a scene. It is an artist's impression of the type, made to give a feel for the vehicle in its element — not a photograph, and not a record of any particular vehicle.

Proportions, fittings, markings, colours and the setting can all drift from the original in the process. For the vehicle's actual details, rely on the specification, the photographs and the cited sources on this page.

Sources

  1. 1Humber FWD ↗Wikipedia · accessed 2026-09-23SOURCE

Registry record updated 2026-09-23 · status: researched