Shorland S55 APV

History

The S55 is the coil-sprung culmination of Short Brothers' personnel-carrier branch rather than of the turreted patrol car. It descends directly from the SB 301 of 1973-74 and the V8-engined SB 401 of the 1980s, and when Shorts put that body on the 110 in Land Rover chassis the vehicle was re-designated S 55 — the name under which it appeared on the company stand at Farnborough in 1988. Shorts originally called it an Armoured Personnel Vehicle, using APV to avoid the confusion caused by their own use of APC for the turreted Armoured Patrol Car; once the S51 was dropped and that ambiguity went away, the S55 was redescribed as an Armoured Personnel Carrier.

It carries eight, driver and commander included, and is built for getting them in and out under fire: two side doors, two rear doors and a grab rail slung from the roof. Early cars repeated the SB 301 and SB 401 arrangement exactly — eight gun ports, three in each flank and one in each rear door, with the windscreens protected by traditional drop-down visors. Later production abandoned the visors and the door hatches in favour of bullet-resistant glass, shrank the gun ports and fitted an armoured vision block above each one; a redesigned bonnet on late cars made engine access easier. The roof is deliberately sloped so that hand-thrown objects roll off even when the vehicle is stationary, the bonnet and windscreen assemblies are shaped to send burning petrol-bomb fuel to the ground rather than into the engine bay, and guttering runs round the doors and under the bonnet for the same purpose. A searchlight sits in the forward roof between the driver and commander and is worked from inside. Protection is the Series 5 standard: NATO 7.62 x 51 mm ball at right angles down to 25 m, BS 5051 Part 1 Class R2 glazing to match, fully armoured engine and radiator, and a reinforced glass-fibre floor against mines and improvised devices. Air conditioning was standard. Adding the armoured body and the crew brought operating weight to 3,600 kg and cut cross-country speed from the patrol car's 48 km/h to 40 km/h.

The options list is where the S55's internal-security purpose shows. A roof hatch could be fitted with or without a machine-gun mounting, or a full turret; fixed grenade launchers firing 66 or 76 mm smoke, illumination or CS rounds were available; and for riot work a bull bar could be hinged down to ground level to clear debris and to stop objects such as beer barrels being rolled under the vehicle to immobilise it. A barricade remover could be mounted at the front without costing ground clearance when stowed. Run-flat tyres, drop-down vision-block visors over the windscreen, police and emergency lighting as separate lamps or a multifunction bar, a public-address system and automatic fire protection completed the catalogue.

Documented orders are unusually specific for a Shorland. In January 1988 Shorts announced a contract for 40 S55s for the Turkish Ministry of the Interior, for gendarmerie use; in June 1990, 24 for the Sindh Police of Pakistan; and late in 1993, vehicles ordered by the Papua New Guinea Defence Force and by television companies protecting film crews in the former Yugoslavia. Army Guide's per-country table totals 99 documented vehicles — Turkey 40, Pakistan 24, Malaysia 20 and Sri Lanka 15 — while noting service in over twenty countries, so 99 is a floor rather than a production run. Short Brothers sold the Shorland line to British Aerospace Australia late in 1996 and Tenix Defence Systems acquired that business early in 1999; no S55 was ever built in Australia, and the type is recorded as production complete and no longer marketed. The Turkish order proved the most consequential of all: Otokar, already assembling Land Rover One-Tens under licence, developed the S55 into its own ZPT, which is covered by a separate record.

A note on the RAF Police association. Shorlands were used by the RAF Police, and Wikipedia records their use in Germany during the 1990s escorting Special Weapons (nuclear) convoys, while a 1986 photograph shows an SB 301 in RAF Police markings at St Mawgan. The documented RAF Police vehicles are therefore the earlier leaf-sprung APVs; no source consulted confirms which mark served in Germany, so the Defender-based S55 in RAF Police livery should be read as a plausible representation rather than an established fit.

Imagery

Registry record

Manufacturer

Short Brothers ↗

Manufactured

Marketed as the S 55 from 1988 (Farnborough debut; first order January 1988) until the line's sale to British Aerospace Australia late in 1996

Modifier / coachbuilder

Short Brothers ↗

Shorland armoured vehicle line, Belfast

Engine type

3.5-litre Rover V8 petrol; 2.5-litre Rover turbo-diesel optional

Production run

~99 documented (Turkey 40, Pakistan 24, Malaysia 20, Sri Lanka 15 per Army Guide), with service reported in over 20 countries — the documented total is a floor, not a production run

Country of origin

United Kingdom

Operated in

Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, United Kingdom

Status

out of production; production complete and no longer marketed

Catalogue data

Record kind

Named model

Model line

Defender

Wheels

4

Nominal wheelbase

110″

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

• Shorland S 55 — Armoured Personnel Carrier ↗ — The Shorland Site (accessed 2026-09-10)
• Shorland S55 (Wheeled armoured personnel carrier) ↗ — Army Guide (Jane's-derived) (accessed 2026-09-10)
• MLR26 ~ Short Brothers APV and Otokar ZPT ↗ — Joint Forces News (Bob Morrison) (accessed 2026-09-10)
• Shorland armoured car — RAF Police use and operators ↗ — Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09-10)
• FAQ — APC and APV terminology, customers ↗ — The Shorland Site (accessed 2026-09-10)

Catalogue references

• https://shorlandsite.com/shorland-s-55/ https://shorlandsite.com/shorland-s-55/ ↗