A 50-year-old armoured personnel carrier was saved from the scrap heap and will now be displayed at the Yorkshire Air Museum.

It will join the heaviest bomb in history and an "ugly duckling" spy plane also now on show.

The 1953 Alvis Saracen personnel carrier had been a Gate Guardian at Worsley Barracks in York.

But when the Yorkshire Squadron of the Queen's Own Yeomanry announced plans to update its display the vintage vehicle faced an uncertain future until the Air Museum accepted their offer to preserve it.

The ten-ton Saracen, fitted with a Browning turret-mounted machine gun and a BREN anti-aircraft gun, first saw service in Malaya and was a common sight in Northern Ireland.

It was also used by the RAF for airfield defence, making it a fitting acquisition for the Yorkshire Air Museum.

A 22,000lb Grand Slam bomb is also on display. Designed by Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, the giant bomb had to be suspended on chains underneath aircraft because it was too big to fit in the bomb bays. Grand Slams were first dropped on the Bielefeld railway viaduct in German in on March 14, 1945, and the designer's son Barnes Wallis Jnr, 79, visited the Air Museum to mark the anniversary.

The Fairey Gannet AEW3, described as one of the most ungainly aircraft ever built, housed an enormous radar system below its fuselage, and played an important role in British intelligence gathering until 1977. The Air Museum paid £20,000, made up of donations from charities and independent supporters, to bring the plane to York.

Updated: 10:31 Wednesday, March 16, 2005