Rolls - Royce Armoured Car The Rolls - Royce armoured car was a British armoured car developed in 1914 and used in World War I and in the early part of World War II . Production history . The Royal Naval Air Service ( RNAS ) raised the first British armoured car squadron during the First World War . In September 1914 all available Rolls Royce " Silver Ghost " chassis were requisitioned to form the basis for the new armoured car . The following month a special committee of the Admiralty Air Department , among whom was Flight Commander T . G . Hetherington , designed the superstructure which consisted of armoured bodywork and a single fully rotating turret holding a regular water cooled Vickers machine gun . The first three vehicles were delivered on 3 December 1914 , although by then the mobile period on the Western Front , where the primitive predecessors of the Rolls - Royce cars had served , had already come to an end . Later in the war they served on several fronts of the Middle Eastern theatre . Chassis production was suspended in 1917 to enable Rolls - Royce to concentrate on aero engine s . The vehicle was modernized in 1920 and in 1924 , resulting in the Rolls - Royce 1920 Pattern and Rolls - Royce 1924 Pattern . In 1940 , 34 vehicles which served in Egypt with the 11th Hussars regiment had the " old " turret replaced with an open - topped unit carrying a Boys anti - tank rifle , . 303 - inch Bren machine gun and smoke - grenade launchers . Some vehicles in Egypt received new chassis from a Fordson truck and became known as Fordson Armoured Cars . Pictures show them as equipped with what appears to be turrets fitted with a Boys ATR , a machine gun and twin light machine guns for anti - aircraft defence . Combat history . Six RNAS Rolls - Royce squadrons were formed of 12 vehicles each : one went to France ; one to Africa to fight in the German colonies and in April 1915 two went to Gallipoli . From August 1915 onwards these were all disbanded and the materiel handed over to the Army which used them in the Light Armoured Motor Batteries of the Machine Gun Corps . The armoured cars were poorly suited to the muddy trench filled battlefields of the Western Front , but were able to operate in the Near East , so the squadron from France went to Egypt . Lawrence of Arabia used a squadron in his operations against the Turkish forces . He called the unit of nine armoured Rolls - Royces " more valuable than rubies " in helping win his " Revolt in the Desert " . This impression would last with him the rest of his life ; when asked by a journalist what he thought would be the thing he would most value he said " I should like my own Rolls - Royce car with enough tyres and petrol to last me all my life " . In the Irish Civil War ( 1922 – 1923 ) , 13 Rolls - Royce armoured cars were given to the Irish Free State government by the British government to fight the Irish Republican Army . They were a major advantage to the Free State in street fighting and in protecting convoys against guerrilla attacks and played a vital role part in the retaking of Cork and Waterford . Incredibly , despite continued maintenance problems and poor reaction to Irish weather , they continued in service until 1944 , being withdrawn once new tyres became unobtainable . Twelve of the Irish Army examples were stripped and sold in 1954 . At the outbreak of World War II , 76 vehicles were in service . They were used in operations in the Western Desert , in Iraq , and in Syria . By the end of 1941 , they were withdrawn from the frontline service as modern armoured car designs became available . Some Indian Pattern cars saw use in the Indian subcontinent and Burma . Variants . A single experimental vehicle had the turret removed and replaced by a one - pounder automatic anti - aircraft gun on an open mounting . Some cars had Maxim machine gun s instead of the Vickers gun .