Driving a Legend: Rare British Ambulance a Rolling Mystery in Fredericksburg

The paint job on an antique ambulance that roams the streets of Fredericksburg hints that a story behind this truck is waiting to be told. Was it part of the British Royal Air Force stationed in Lossiemouth, Scotland? Was it connected to Prince Harry?

Did it see time in the Falkland Islands war in the early 1980s?

Answers to these questions aren’t etched in stone, but one thing is for sure: “It drives like a tank,” said owner Hamilton Palmer, a resident of Fredericksburg who owns the ambulance, which has become a novelty of sorts.

What is known about it started with the British Royal Air Force, which used it at their fighter base in Lossiemouth, Scotland, in 1973. They owned this ambulance made by a company called Marshall, but something happened to the wheel structure, so it now sits on a 1983 Land Rover frame. One of the previous owners, Ed Wallis in Stafford County, kept it in his yard near the Stafford Airport, where he was the airport director. He brought it over from Europe and sold it to Palmer.

Palmer does know some things about his ambulance, which has a for-sale sign on the front seat. He’ll sell it to someone who’s serious about buying, but he’s not really advertising it anywhere. He does drive it around town a bit and seems to like the novelty of owning this collector’s item. You better hope Mike Wolfe from the “American Pickers” show doesn’t show up with a wad of cash.

“I’ve seen it around, but I don’t know anything about it,” said a woman passing by on the sidewalk.

When Wallis was the airport director, Palmer was one of the officials there, too, which led to the ambulance transaction in 1989. Somehow, he drove it over from the airport and fixed it up a bit.d

Palmer went into the database of British Military Vehicles, matched the Vehicle Identification Number, or “VIN” as they say around the garage, and became entrenched in his ambulance’s capabilities.

It’s powered by a Land Rover 225 engine, and in the back, there was room for two people on stretchers as well as mounting brackets for two more stretchers. “You could put four people in here and two bodies on top,” he said. There is a NATO-sized plug in the back and the gas tank nozzle is under the front passenger seat. The windows in the back are treated with a substance that makes them “black out” in case it is in combat, and there’s a rack on the front that is used to push airplanes off the runway when needed.

“I drive it once a week,” Palmer added. He did loan it to the Historical Fredericksburg Foundation once but hasn’t entered any parades. Some have asked about refurbishing it but Palmer’s not enthusiastic. There’s NATO camouflaged paint and red crosses on the side, and it’s registered with the DMV.  “As far as I’m concerned, it’s preserved,” he said.