Until 4 years ago, the Boss family business – which started in 1969 – had sold and serviced light commercial vehicles from all mainstream brands. Then came Andy’s love affair with this most unlikely cast member of British farming. So impressed was he with his first Quad truck, bought purely on a shoot near his base in Redditch, Worcestershire, that he imported another 5… and they have kept rolling in ever since.

There are now over 100 of them in the hands of farmers, foresters, gamekeepers and beekeepers, from Bodmin to Basildon and as far north as Berwick-upon-Tweed. Almost all have replaced UTV’s whose owners have become increasingly hacked off with their extortionate costs (some selling for £25,000 or more), notorious lack of reliability and the price of spare parts.

Comparatively, the four wheel-drive Quadtruck starts at just under £8,000, it comes with a far more generous spec, cab heater, aircon and a radio (that you can actually hear) and has a considerably bigger load bed.

The one concession is age. All of Abbey’s vehicles are at least 10 years old (for import related reasons) and have between 5,000 km and 100,000 km on the clock. They’re plucked from Japanese auction houses in near mint condition, shipped to the UK, and fettled in the firms three-bay workshop, serviced, chassis waxed, and batteries replaced, ready for delivery.

There are currently 16 on the newly established Quadtruck migration route from Asia to East Worcestershire. Once the vehicles are safely on UK shore, daughter Lucy deals with the paperwork, ensuring each has a notification of vehicle arrivals (Nova) certificate and is registered for UK roads.