Babcock completes 50th armoured conversion of Landcruiser 300

By Peter Davison

29 August 2023

Share

The Business Magazine article image for: Babcock completes 50th armoured conversion of Landcruiser 300

Landcruiser 300s being coveretd for military use

West Midlands defence contractor Babcock International Group has celebrated the completion of the 50th Armoured Toyota LC300 since production started in September 2022.

Babcock – which has sites in Warminster, Cheltenham, Bristol, Tewkesbury, Taunton, Walsall, and Devonport – is an industry leader in this field, producing safe and secure vehicle platforms for those who operate in hostile climates.

The engineering facility in the West Midlands has specialised in producing armoured vehicles for over 40 years for major NATO government agencies.

With five independently certified armoured vehicle solutions and over 800 civilian armoured vehicles active in service, the firm plays a critical role in international defence and in keeping its customers safe.

The new Land Cruiser 300 Series was launched by Toyota in August 2021 and was a complete redesign of the outgoing 200 Series. The comprehensive whole-vehicle test regime included successfully sustaining hundreds of ballistic impacts of varying bullet calibres, and over 21kg of explosives being detonated at varying distances to simulate a number of attacks.

Visit Hampshire Biz News for bright, upbeat and positive business news from the county

Managing Director of Engineering and Systems Integration, at Babcock, Chris Spicer said: “The LC300 is Babcock’s most robust civilian armoured vehicle offering comprehensive protection against a range of threats that can occur across the world.

"The production facility in the West Midlands is scaling up the production rate to ensure we satisfy our customers growing demand. We’re very proud to have produced vehicle number 50! Babcock is a world leader in this field, and no one is closer to our customers, delivering the capability they need, wherever they need it.”

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.