It was by far the most detailed selection process ever undertaken for a British Army logistic system. The provisionally selected vehicles were extensively trialled for a year by a specially-formed trials unit, before both the unit and the MOD were completely satisfied that they met the army's requirements. The DROPS vehicles and equipment were limited in their design to operate effectively only in NATO's European climatic conditions of temperature and humidity, and as such both variants were only available in left hand drive only. It has, therefore, been a challenging engineering problem to ensure that they have performed extremely well under war conditions in an environment for which they were specifically not designed - the desert. MMLC Introduced in early 1990, the truck was a military development of the commercial Leyland T45 roadtrain. As the company had entrusted to Scammell the development of the commercial eight-wheeled variant (S24 constructor range), the military variant was developed as the Scammell S26. Initially developed for the 1986 DROPS trials as a 6x6, the final 8x6 S26 had a Rolls-Royce Perkins 350 Eagle engine; a 12-litre diesel @ ), a ZF six-speed automatic gearbox and Kirkstall axles. In February 1987 the company learned that its tender for 1,522 such vehicles was successful, but because the Leyland group merged with DAF Trucks of the Netherlands to form DAF NV the S26 would be built at the Leyland factory in Leyland, Lancashire, allowing the complete closure of Scammell's Watford site. Leyland eventually produced 1,421 MMLC vehicles and a number of vehicle cabs ordered as spares. Due to damage, the entire MoD stock of spare cabs has now been exhausted. During the first Gulf War, the vehicles suffered from sand ingress, which resulted in a total failure of the engine plant. A modification was quickly introduced to raise the air intake to avoid the sand ingress. During 2002 the fleet underwent a major midlife upgrade and refurbishment. This included the introduction of an anti-lock braking system (ABS). The MMLC had two trailer types, (known as "king" and "queen" trailers) specifically designed to carry the same load pallet which was transferred from the main vehicle. The queen trailer was supplied by Reynolds Boughton but the king trailer was indeed supplied by King Trailers who have since 1962 been the UK's biggest manufacturer of trailers for specialist loads. The Leyland DAF MMLC vehicles were mainly issued to the Royal