Rolls Royce at war, 1:43 style

From this:

 To this:

Here's the background story:

Rolls Royce Armored Car

  In 1914 at the beginning of World War I, armored car development in Great Britain was practically non-existent. The first Rolls Royce ACs were conceived almost by accident. In August 1914, a squadron of the RNAS (Royal Naval Air Service) was based in Ostend. On the road to England, they were ordered to stay in Dunkirk and help delay the enemy incursions. Two of the cars were equipped with a 0.3 cal. (7.62 mm) Maxim machine-gun, to supplement the lack of aircraft. After a few sorties, they were armored with boiler plates. So successful were their actions that, by decision of the War Office in October, all other Rolls Royce Silver Ghost chassis were requisitioned to form the basis for the new armored car, consisting of armored bodywork and a single fully rotating turret mounting a regular water-cooled .303-in (7.7 mm) Mk I Vickers machine gun. Thus came the Armored Car 1914 Pattern. It is estimated that 120 vehicles were so converted for the RNAS. Modernization came after WWI, with the 1920, 1921 Indian, and 1924 patterns, which survived long enough to see service during WWII in Africa.

  The first three vehicles were delivered on 3 December 1914.   Chassis production was suspended in 1917 to enable Rolls-Royce to concentrate on aero engines, and total production was about 120 vehicles.   Production resumed in low numbers after 1920.

  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.  The armored cars were poorly suited to the muddy trench-filled battlefields of the Western Front, but they 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 armored 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 tires and petrol to last me all my life".

   At the outbreak of the second World War, 76 vehicles were still in service. They were used in operations in Ireland, the Western Desert, in Iraq, and in Syria. By the end of 1941, they were withdrawn from frontline service as modern designs became available.

    (from Wikipedia and other sources.  For many illustrations and more details, see 

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/gb/Rolls_Royce_Armoured_Car.php )

Today they exist only in museums and faded photographs.

And in some of our collections, thanks to Matchbox!

I like to see them side-by-side.  Rule Britannia!