The Abbot was Britain's only domestically-designed self-propelled gun of the Cold War, meant to replace the venerable, wartime-era Sexton SPGs that remained in service as late as the 1960s. The Abbot was based on the FV432 family of APCs, sharing a similar chassis, powertrain, and suspension, and was characterized by an all-welded hull and a conventional layout with the driver seated at the front right as well as a removable multi-fuel powerplant in the rear. The turret houses a 105-mm L13A1 gun which was compatible with the caliber of most of the British Army's towed artillery at the time, and also served as an alternative to the 155-mm caliber of the US-built M109 which entered service in the UK at the same time. The gun had a range of 17 km and could fire up to 12 rounds per minute. Defensive armament consisted of a 7.62-mm Bren light machine gun in the commander's cupola. The Abbot was amphibious thanks to a flotation screen, and was also provided with NBC protection. The turret featured powered traverse but manual elevation, in addition to powered rammer. The Abbot was deployed to Royal Artillery regiments in the UK and Germany where they served for much of the second-half of the Cold War, while a knocked-down version was offered to India, it's only export customer. However, it did not see active service with the British Army and was eventually replaced by the AS-90.

The first prototype of the FV433 Abbot was ready in 1961 with production beginning three years later in 1964. There were no major variants aside from the V/E Abbot (or Value-Engineered) which was offered to India and which lacked the original's flotation screen, powered traverse, NBC protection and defensive-armament, among other features. A more advanced version known as the Falcon was cancelled.