Very little is known about how many R and S Series Valiant ambulances were actually produced, as most of the companies that manufactured ambulance bodies over forty years ago have closed down and most of the former workers have passed on. Production records from those companies are probably in the hands of relatives or have been lost with the passage of time. Also hindering the search for records of these vehicles is the fact that at that time Ambulance districts were still in charge of maintaining their own fleet, therefore there is no single source of records of vehicles being purchased that covers the entire Ambulance Service in any state. I have received a lot of valuable information from Michael Taylor, who is a New South Wales ambulance officer. Mike has been collecting ambulance photos for many years and has also provided me with a lot of the photos for this article. Without his knowledge and his extensive photo collection this article would not have been complete.
The districts that definitely used R or S Series Valiants as ambulances were mostly in western NSW. Vehicles confirmed to have existed are:
Central West District had one at their Orange Headquarters station.
Mid Western District had one at their Cowra Headquarters station.
Western District had three, two at their Dubbo Headquarters station and one at their Coolah Branch station.
Far South Coast District had one at their Narooma Branch station.
Inverell District had one at their Warialda Branch station.
Dungog-Stroud District had one at their Dungog Headquarters station.
The Canberra Ambulance Service in the Australian Capital Territory also had one in service.
This brings the total number built to nine. I believe these were all S Series Valiants.
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It is unlikely that any R Series ambulances were built due to their limited production numbers and very short production run (they were sold out in about six weeks). It would have taken a few months to have a new vehicle purchase approved by the local ambulance Committees, by which time R Series Valiants would have been sold out. I have seen photos of the Cowra, Dungog, Narooma and Canberra cars and the two Dubbo cars, and all are S Series. Of those vehicles all except the Canberra car were built by W.S. Grice Bodyworks of Summer Hill in Sydney.
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The Canberra car differs in body style to the Grice built cars. This is most noticeable at the rear doors which remain as standard height, not extended up into the roof line. I believe that the Canberra car may have been built by Freighter-Laughton’s in Adelaide who built a very similar style ambulance on later AP5 and AP6 Valiant Safari station wagons. The AP wagons also had similar style roof beacons to the Canberra S Series. It is also possible the Canberra S Series may have been built in Sydney by F.L. Chivers of Greenacre who built some Ambulances for the ACT Ambulance Service in the later 1960’s.
The remaining three vehicles (Orange, Warialda and Coolah) have been identified from two sources. Michael Taylor has seen a photograph of the Orange car. The Warialda and Coolah cars were identified from District Annual Reports to the Ambulance board, in which their fleet reports mentioned 1962 Valiant ambulances in use at those stations.
It is still possible that some other R or S Series Valiant ambulances existed but at this time I have not seen any evidence to support this. However, I am always searching for more information and will update this list should any other vehicles be discovered.
