The original timber mock-up of the one ton general service vehicle. At this stage of development, the specification called for a compact design capable of transport by caribou aircraft. Two of the prototype XF4s. The G3 is a Ford Motor Company built version, while the D3 was manufactured by the International Harvester Company. Both preformed extremely well in trials, but the Ford version was considered a better basis for further development, albeit using some International Harvester components. International Harvester built D2 slogs along a jungle track in the Tully rainforest. One of each manufacturer’s vehicles was subjected to hot-wet trials at the Army’s Tropical Trials Establishment in late 1971.

In the mid-1960s the Mackay Committee reviewed the Australian Army’s general service (GS) truck requirements and recommended that the three quarter ton capacity vehicles be replaced with a one ton vehicle. The plan was to produce a one ton capacity GS truck with as close to 100 per cent Australian input as possible. With that recommendation, the Australian Army Design Establishment’s (ADE) Project V279 was born.

The project required active participation from the Australian automotive industry and progressed through several distinct phases. The first was the development of a timber mock-up by ADE, which was unveiled in June 1967. The cab-over-engine, forward control design resulted in a squat and square mock up that embraced functionality at the expense of automotive beauty.

Once the general concept had been accepted, Project V279 moved to the second phase: the construction and limited automotive testing of an experimental model designated the XF4. Hand built by ADE engineering and workshop staff using available automotive mechanical components, the experimental XF4 was used for validating design principles, and for industry demonstrations.

The XF4 was first shown to selected automotive representatives in mid-1969. The experimental model was used as a basis by Ford Australia and the International Harvester Company in the design and production of competitive trial models. Adhering to the ADE design closely, each company produced four vehicles for Army trials. Although similar at a distance, the Ford and International Harvester Company trial vehicles had subtle external differences, and utilised their own proprietary automotive components.

During 1971-72 the eight test vehicles were put through a series of competitive trials which were designed to accelerate the effects of normal service use and highlight any design weaknesses. The vehicle’s performance was also compared to the in-service three quarter ton Land Rover.

The trials were carried out at ADE’s Trial and Proving Wing located north west of Melbourne at Monegeeta. The vehicles completed over 7,000 miles of testing on a wide variety of road conditions, with trials on sand and through coastal scrub carried out at the Flinders Naval Depot during August and September 1971.

In November, one of each manufacturer’s XF4s were tested in hot-wet trials when they were driven to Innisfail in Queensland, a distance of over 2000 miles. Here, at the Tropical Trials Establishment located at Cowley Beach, the two pilot models were subjected to the extremes of jungle driving and later, to limited user trials by artillery and infantry units.

The results for both test vehicles were impressive and the limited faults discovered were later overcome through further development. However, it was the Ford-built XF4, with the incorporation of some International Harvester Company parts, which would be adopted as the next generation of light GS trucks for the Army.

Unfortunately, having just emerged from an extended and expensive commitment to the war in South Vietnam, neither the political climate or the project’s escalating cost were conducive to the further development and eventual adoption into service of the XF4.

As a result the project was shut down in the mid-1970s and the three quarter ton Land Rover remained firmly entrenched as the Army’s light tactical truck. With the purchase of 2100 Series 3 vehicles approved in 1976, the opportunity to complete the development of a home grown vehicle in the one ton class was lost.

The trial vehicles and the experimental prototypes were either sold off in the late 1970s or transferred to what is now the Army Museum Bandiana. Here they are still on display, silent proof to the time when we built the XF4.