The record
The Universal was 3.66 m long and 2.06 m wide, weighed 3.3 tonnes unladen, carried three or four crew behind 7–10 mm of armour, and ran at 30 mph for 150 miles on a Ford V8 of 85 hp, with Horstmann suspension. It carried a Bren gun or Boys rifle as standard and Vickers or Browning machine guns, mortars or a PIAT as required, and it towed anti-tank guns. Infantry support companies had 10 carriers at first, 21 by 1941 and up to 33 per battalion by 1943; Reconnaissance Corps regiments had 63.
About 57,000 of all models were built in Britain by 1945, by Aveling-Barford, Ford, Sentinel, Thornycroft and Wolseley Motors. Ford of Canada built about 29,000, Australia about 5,000, New Zealand about 1,300 and Ford in the United States about 20,000 of its own longer version. The Soviet Union received 200 by the end of 1941 and 2,560 Universal and Loyd carriers after, and after the war carriers went to Argentina, West Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Ireland and a dozen others; Ireland's were still in service in the 1960s. The Tank Museum's example, a Mark II, was built by Sentinel at Shrewsbury in 1940.
