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Scottorn Trailers

Surrey trailer maker of the 1960s and 1970s, latterly a subsidiary of T. T. Boughton and Sons, best known for the Bushmaster: a single-axle trailer with a Land Rover 109 axle driven through the tow vehicle's power take-off, patented in 1962, which turned a Series IIA or a 101 Forward Control into a six-wheel-drive outfit.

History

Scottorn Trailers Ltd traded from the Victor Works on Kingston Road, New Malden, Surrey, and later from Chartridge near Chesham in Buckinghamshire, building single-axle drawbar trailers of up to 2 tons and two-axle turntable or close-coupled trailers of up to 16 tons, with chassis fitted out for generators, pumps and metering gear or plain goods bodies. It was for a time a subsidiary of the Amersham engineers T. T. Boughton and Sons.

The design the firm is remembered for was filed as a patent in October 1962 and sold soon after as the Bushmaster: a 1.75-ton single-axle trailer on a Land Rover 109 axle with freewheeling hubs, driven from the towing Land Rover's rear PTO through two propeller shafts and a multi-jointed coupling that let the outfit articulate in every direction while keeping drive to the trailer wheels. Paired first with the Series IIA 109 and then with the 101 Forward Control, whose rear PTO was specified with the powered trailer in mind, the Bushmaster gave the British Army a way of moving a heavier load over soft ground than a Land Rover alone could manage. Scottorn also built a demonstration outfit around a stripped Series IIA fire tender. The company no longer exists.

Vehicles in this registry (1)

Sources & citations

Maker record updated 2026-09-11T08:59:45.650Z · status: researched