AA Night Patrol Series I 80

History

In July 1949 the Automobile Association bought its first Land Rover, an 80-inch Series I registered KLX 770, for the after-dark breakdown squad it ran from Bayham Street in Camden Town. The Night Patrols answered members' calls across London when the daytime motorcycle patrols had gone home, and the Land Rover — fitted with a two-way radio, a vice on the tailboard, jerry cans and a slave battery for jump starts — could carry the kit a motorcycle combination could not and get to a stranded car in any weather. It proved the type for the AA, which went on to run Land Rovers for decades. KLX 770 was restored in the 1980s and has since been displayed at Coventry Transport Museum and at the AA's Basingstoke headquarters as part of the association's heritage fleet.

The museum photographs show the restored vehicle: AA yellow with the outer faces of the front wings in black, a khaki canvas tilt running over the open cab, a yellow ROAD SERVICE board with AA badges below the windscreen, wire mesh over the grille and headlamps, the AA badge on the left wing front and on both rear tub sides, the black KLX 770 plate on the right wing front, a radio aerial on the right screen pillar, black wheels and a galvanised bumper. The registry model reproduces that vehicle and opens the new Breakdown group in the special-vehicle selector, as the queue notes requested.

Imagery

Registry record

Manufacturer

Rover Company (Land Rover Series I 80-inch, 1949)

Manufactured

1949 (delivered July 1949)

Modifier / coachbuilder

The Automobile Association (radio and patrol fit)

Engine type

Rover 1.6 L inlet-over-exhaust petrol

Production run

unknown (first of a small batch of AA Series I patrol Land Rovers)

Country of origin

United Kingdom

Operated in

United Kingdom

Status

preserved

Catalogue data

Record kind

Named model

Model line

Series I

Wheels

4

Nominal wheelbase

80″

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.

Sources & citations

Researched sources

• Coventry Transport Museum – KLX770 Land Rover Mk1 AA radio service (Wikimedia Commons) ↗ — Wikimedia Commons (accessed 2026-09-12)
• AA Land Rover KLX 770 (Flickr, buzzer999) ↗ — Flickr (accessed 2026-09-12)
• The first ten years of AA Land Rovers ↗ — Lancaster Insurance (accessed 2026-09-12)
• Classic AA patrol vehicles ↗ — Yahoo Lifestyle (accessed 2026-09-12)

Catalogue references

• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coventry_Transport_Museum-_KLX770_Land_Rover_Mk1_AA_radio_service.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coventry_Transport_Museum-_KLX770_Land_Rover_Mk1_AA_radio_service.jpg ↗