Its been a long time in the making but finally the Mk2, Barbour All Terrain Tracking Vehicle has finally seen light of day, and under its own power at last.
The vehicle which is predominately designed for off road camera tracking is pretty much a 4×4 Rally Raid car built for film work. Based on a Land Rover Defender 130 the Mk2 BATT vehicle is a highly modified bit of kit. Powered by a 410 horsepower V8 Corvette engine this will be no slouch off or on road and the suspension which has been designed to smooth out the terrain off road will be equally at home on road for conventional camera tracking work.
Standing on an axle and wheel set up that makes the tracking vehicle 14 inches wider than a standard Land Rover this will provide a secure, stable and safe platform for all kinds of filming applications. The new BATT has been built to accommodate standard cranes, telescopic cranes such as Millennium cranes and Technocrane as well as standard camera rigs, stabilised heads and and the new generation of gyro stabilised remote controlled cranes such as the Russian Arm and the Pursuit Crane.
Next equipment to be fitted is as follows……
- Roll cage…fully demountable in 3 sections depending on what is required.
- Tilt cover over cage for weather protection. Removable in 3 sections as per roll cage.
- 12 volt on board power to front and rear platforms
- 240 volt on board power…(underslung/removable 2.1KVA generator.)
- Roof mounting points for Pursuit Arm crane or Russian Arm.
- Extra platform for front and rear.
- Extra plating for bonnet and roof to enable them to be used as platforms.
- Scaffold fittings for rear deck when roll cage is removed.
- Peltor Wireless Dectcom intercom system linked to unit radio comms.
- Front mounted winch to enable vehicle to act as re-positionable crane base for difficult locations and for self loading of kit onto rear.
There is still some work to do but the back of the job has now been broken and hopefully the ‘Vampyre’ BATT will on the road and ready to start work sometime in the very near future. A big thanks goes to Patrick and his team at Maddison 4×4 to getting it to where it is now.
Latest photos of the project at… http://gallery.me.com/duncanbarbour#100008
