I asked him the story of how he got such a rare vehicle,here is the story below....
The RSO I found in Norway on 1985, I finally managed to buy it in 1988 and picked it up 1989.
That was an epic trip in its own right.
We had to drive from the southern most tip right up to the arctic circle to pick it up. It took 2 1/2 days of driving to get there, load. Turn around and drive back down to catch the ferry back home.
I carried out the restoration over several years. it had its first public outing at the Portsmouth D-Day show in 1994 and I have shown it every year since then.
It had a brief staring part in the Band of Brothers mini series.
The history of my RSO is lost in time, all I can tell you it was built in Aug 1943 and obviously ended up in Norway. And was used in the post war years by the gentleman I bought it from. If you want more on how they came into service, it was to fill a serious need for vehicles that could cope with the Russian road conditions during the autumn, winter and spring. During the massive German advances into Russian in 1941 everything went well, with the supply people having a nightmare keeping up with the rapidly advancing armies.
When the first signs of winter came and turned all of the roads into mud, the fast advances slowed and the resupply had no chance of getting anywhere near the forward lines. The cry went up for a suitable load carrier.
The procurements people went around the various vehicle manufacturers to see what they had on the drawing board and Steyr had the RSO. This was pushed into production by 1942 with three other companies also building RSO under licence.
Although the RSO was brought into service for the Russian front it proved so useful that it was used on all fronts except North Africa.
