Truck Identification in the area of SOLLUM
 

Below pics have been taken by a british soldier in the area of SOLLUM. Could anybody please tell me the type of vehicle?

I have absolutely no glue what it could be :confused

Hi Kuno:

Sorry you have no takers on your trucks.

British trucks, particularly late thirties ones are not my specialty by a long way but of the ones I have seen used in NA, they seemed to be mostly Morris and Commer brands.
I would also guess that they were 15cwt vehicles but I do not know the model numbers for either one off hand.
Hope that gets some thoughts started.
Edit: I did some further research and find also both Chev and Ford vehicles, presumably from Egyptian stock, were used in that general area. It may also be they can be 8 cwt vehicles.
Still looking.




Regards
Bill

First I had the idea that they could be italian trucks as well. It seemed like the photo had been shot from the escarpment from a hidden place...

...meanwhile I believe that one of the column was climbing the escarpment and made a pic of his own column.

Hi all
this photo looks to be of the same type in your photo Kuno on the back it says Ford 8cwt PU 30hp

Les

the second is a slightly different model is it a ford or chev, it would certainly make those 1950s hot rod boys proud, over to you Bill

PU
 

The Ford looked to me as a non expert to be a 1936 Ford Model 67 Pick-up, not a 1935. Assembled by Ford in Alexandria?

Morning All:

Les, absolutely smashing photos, hope you have more!!!

David, it is almost impossible to tell a 1935 from a 1936 unless you can see the grille and this could be either I think. The second I believe is a 1934 Ford.

And, the more I look at Kuno's photos the more I lean towards an American make, maybe a Ford. I am going to fiddle around with my photo edit program some more (I am still learning some tricks) to see if I can get one truck to come out clearer.
Regards
Bill

1835 versus 1936 Fords
 

Bill, I go by the drawings:
http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/f...el_ID_1935.htm

http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/f...el_ID_1936.htm

usually BUT the British versions of the time [Model C then CX] differed in side louvre design, plus they imported some US chassis as well. However I am suggesting 1936 as the War Department acquired some 1936 Ford Pick-ups with US chassis. So it's an educated guess? I have similar problems with distinguishing 1939 versus 1940 Chevrolets....!!

1936 Ford
 

British-assembled Ford 8-cwt US Model 67 [I believe] to Contract V.2889

http://www.mapleleafup.org/forums/at...=&postid=44730

British Model C? 1935?? Bottom one is I think a Fordson BB.

http://www.mapleleafup.org/forums/at...=&postid=44731

Glad you are enjoying these, three more for you two to ponder
i await the results. One certainty there was no points for styling out there
cheers
Les

Wow! You are the real specialistes! Will try to get a scan with a higher resolution and to post it here.

Many thanks for your assistance. :)

Another question in relation to the subject:

The first pic has been taken at the North African Coastline. It is assumed that the date should be just before Rommel's first advance - not later than March 1941.

Is it realistic that british units did still use those trucks then?

(Why not? )

Answer?
 

I am no expert, at all, but I can say that the first CMP trucks, say F15s, to British order that were delivered to the Middle East only arrived in Alexandria in January 1941 and then had to be assembled and issued. There is ample evidence that 1939 and 1940 Chevrolets acquired under a 1938 agreement with General Motors were being widely used in 1941, and some were shipped to Greece. The big problem though was obtaining spare parts for older trucks, and this was one partly of supplying through the Mediterranean which was closed at some point to comemrcial traffic, and partly the lack of $$$ which had to be voted by the Treasury Committee that voted on currency exchange and expenditure. The British Government file that I read confirms that many millions of £££ were in fact voted for spare parts to keep the existing vehicles going. In this case that meant buying $$$ to spend in Alexandria in the Ford and GM Near East plants that was then sent to the US, although Egyptian £ were also used.

...sounds confusing...but even during a war everybody wants to earn his money!

A thought which you may consider as a little bit crazy:

Could it be possiblethat those trucks were used as well by the Italians?

Not that I think that they had captured any trucks in that early stage of the war. Bur maybe they just had BOUGHT them bevore the outbreak of the war.

I remeber that during the italian attack on ABESSINIA in 1935, the US supplied them with trucks (although the US took part the sanctions against Italy as well. Money is Money is Money).

$$$$
 

It is always possible that the Italians purchased Fords and Chevrolets and GMCs from the Alexandria subsidiaries! The GM Plant covered Cyrenaica and the territory that was originally covered by GM's office in Madrid, Spain in 1925 moved to the Warehouse in Alexandria in 1926, and then an assembly plant in 1936. British Government records show that around 1937-8 there were concerns that there was an Egyptian importer of German Ford cars, namely the Eiffel, that was selling cheaper than the British Fords from Dagenham. However Fords said that they would sell wherever they could, even in competition with each other. It is very possible if not likely that GM and Ford vehicles were sold all along the North African coast.

As an illustration of how GM sold vehicles to anyone with $$$ here is some information.

I also have seen a British file on concerns that the Afghan Government were importing lots of Chevrolets 1936-8 and then after war broke out Fords, through the Bombay, India assembly plants. Ford in Britian had nothing to do with it...the point was made that these purchases were made with $$$ through the Afghan Purchasing Commission in New York and that was that! In the end the British persuaded the Indian Government to stop the Bombay Plants from assembling anything other than British order military vehicles. This then involved compensation paid to pay for the Afghan vehicles purchased but not delivered.

Yugolslav Chevrolet brochure
 

Cover!

It seems that "globalisation" was known to FORD already a few years ago.

However; this would be the first time I see Italians using this model of FORD in Libya. The very early models of FORD have been used, this I know...

Hi guys:

David is the Historian, something I can never aspire to but must be content with the title, "enthustiac amateur collector of things automotive". I do not have the discipline to qualify as an historian.

However, a few nuggets to fill in David's more structured contributions.

Ford Motor Company:

The photos I have collected indicate that Ford had, as we all know, a major assembly presence in Britain, France & Germany.
A somewhat smaller presence in Belgium, Holland and a few other countries.

One problem that comes up when trying to ID vehicles from the three major assembly/manufacturing countries is that there was firstly a mixture of locally produced and imported vehicles.

Britain, France and Germany all had locally produced variants that differed markedly from the same year US derived vehicles.

Additionally, the European companies often used different model designations than what we were used to in the US. We tend to ID Fords by model year and series (Standard/Deluxe etc.) rather than by the numerical system used in Europe.

Thirdly, Ford seems to have had a policy of continuing to supply the dies for earlier years sheet metal to Europe beyond the ending of manufacture in the US. This continued for many years in other parts of the world after WWII and was not confined to Ford.

In the rest of Europe, Scandinavia, the Baltic States and I suppose Africa and Asia, it seems that Ford either sent fully built up vehicles or kits that were in the main modelled on the then current US pattern.

All of the above can make for certain difficulties in ascertaining exactly what model/year Ford we are looking at.

Regarding RHD variants of US type Fords, as far as I know, all were sourced from Canada.

General Motors:

GM took, as we all know, a slightly different approach in that they purchased Vauxhall/Bedford and Opel as a way to penetrate the British and German markets. At the same time, they operated a pretty large parallel export business shipping complete vehicles, kits and chassis of various stages of completion to not only the UK and Germany but to pretty near any other country as well.

Generally speaking, most people on the various history forums tend to ID GM vehicles strictly by make and year, ie 1937 Chevrolet or 1939 Buick etc. A heck of a lot easier as GM seems to have kept strictly to the current model year and did not have variants with different sheet metal on offer on the export markets.
Sorry, Australia would be one exception as they had a wide range of GM (and Ford) products that were exclusive to that market.

As far as I can understand, RHD GM product all came from Canada more or less regardless of final destination.

Chrysler:

I have no solid information that Chrysler had any manufacturing or assembly operations of any consequence outside of the US prior to 1939.

They certainly did do a lot of export activities and were present to one degree or another in pretty much every country in the world.

I can only assume that they sent out the same variety of CBU, chassis and kit variety of vehicles as GM and Ford did.

Other makes:

The export market prior to 1939 was vital for a number of lesser US producers. I do not have an exact figure, but I would bet that the then "Big Three" had 90% plus of the US home market.

So, we see makes like Reo, Stewart, Studebaker, International Harvester and perhaps 25 other lesser light manufacturers depending heavily on the export market, particularly in countries that were not high priority markets for GM, Ford and Chrysler.

This is perhaps why we see these vehicles represented in countries like Norway, Estonia, Latvia, etc.

Well, guys, that is probably enough on the subject for this time.
Let us just say that there is sufficient materiel available today, tomorrow and in the long term future to keep us busy trying to properly identify all of the thousands of photos that I hope we will see in the coming years.

Bill

Most of the RHD Chrysler varieties that reached New Zealand originated from Canada, thus giving me the impression that like Ford & GM they had manufacturing facilities there (in Canada).

New Zealand in 1938/39 recieved a lot of the smaller bodied Plymouths badged as Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler, Plymouth and Fargo (trucks) from Canada along with a sprinkling of the bigger US bodied sedans in RHD. Most sedans were also availiable in 'boot models' (had a bump then a flat boot lid) or the sloped back (roof sloped straight down to the bumper). All the rebadged ones also had minor interior styling differences as well. The same applied to the 1938 models although I am not sure of the pre 1938 vehicles.

Trucks were mainly either flat cowl with locally made timber framed bodies or cowl/windscreen models with local made timber framed bodies. This type of body style was present up to the early 50's as well before all steel cabs became availiable. A lot of the smaller 1/2 ton models also had the running boards and rear mudguards fitted and flat tray, locally built bodies fitted over the top of the mudguards.

I owed a large variety of 1939 to 1945 Chrysler products in my youth so I had a lot of first hand experience with them. Alas no camera in those days so photos are few and far between.

Cheers
Cliff :)

Replies
 

1. Chrysler had an assembly plant in Stockholm, Sverige, and I believe in Anvers/Antwerpen pre-war but I cannot confirm the latter.

2. Fords were generally only rhd out of Windsor, Ontario BUT Lincoln Zephyrs were produced in rhd until at least 1940.

3. GM produced rhd Pontiacs/GMC pick-ups until say 1940, but offered rhd Chevrolet cars until 1963, although I am not sure about trucks: might be 1942?

No, Ford had an engineering code system that was used across all Ford subsidiaries. When you say "We", you mean the general US motoring public. Ford US did use alpha-numerical codes like 48A to describe 1935 passenger car, or 91T for a 1939 2 ton truck. This system was followed by other Ford plants in other countries, with a prefix to denote country of manufacture.

Morning Lads:

Now you know why I will never be a historian!!
I tend to get carried away and leave gaps in my tidbit offerings but will try to clean it up a bit here.

The subject photo on this thread seems to depict Interwar vehicles and probably MCP vehicles at that.

It was at this issue that I was aiming in that there were many possibilities regarding the origin of US or US style chassis which ended up in Europe and North Africa.

It was confusing enough pre 1939/1940 when the majority of the strictly civilian models were imported, manufactured or assembled in the various countries. There were also, of course, many examples of military or quasi military trucks that were being made in the UK, Holland, Belgium and several other countries in the mid to late 1930s that seem to have been based on US style chassis.

Then in 1939-1940, there was a flood of what I perceive to be US origin vehicles coming into Europe, especially the UK and France,but not limited to those countries. This further muddies the identification problem sometimes.

So, David, you are quite correct that there was some sort of assembly operation in almost any country you can name but I was thinking only of major operations where there was also a manufacturing operation in addition to ckd/pkd assembly.

Cliff: Sorry I more or less ignored Australia/New Zealand and the rest of the Asia/India area. To me that was a bit out of the scope of Kuno's original photo question. As the war progressed, one would certainly find Australian and New Zealand vehicles at least in North Africa in the eary stages and all over the Pacific right to the end. I also failed to acknowledge that Chrysler had a substantial manufacturing operation in Canada.

Tony, you too are of course correct. Being an American, though, I can tell you there is a world of difference in how we identify vehicles. Other than in the buff books, you will almost never see the designation 91T or 48A. We call 'em a 39 Ford Deluxe or a 39 Ford 1/2 ton or whatever. A certain laziness on our part perhaps.

The same is usually true of dedicated military vehicles. We rarely use the numeric designations with the exception of armoured vehicles. So, a Jeep is a Jeep no matter if it is a Willys, a Ford or a Bantam, a CCKW353 is a GMC 2 1/2 tonner etc.

I would exempt, of course, people who actually own and restore such vehicles. I am speaking here of people like myself that collect more in the line of photos, catalogues etc.

Enough of the mea culpa.

David, did I take your comments about RHD vehicles from GM to mean they were built with RHD in the US? I always assumed that all RHD US style vehicles, at least light/medium trucks and cars shipped from North America were built in Canada.

Got to go for now, still looking at Kuno's photo and trying to make a decision.

Bill

GM RHD
 

Up until 1939 say, Bloomfield Boxing Plant and Tarrytown, New York, plants exported rhd Chevrolet cars and trucks: the former crated CKD units. This carried on with military orders from overseas save that Flint, Michigan seem to have been the main source of lhd trucks for overseas governments until the whole Corporation went on to a war footing. Post-war, I believe that Tarrytown produced all rhd vehicles, and in the case of passenger cars this went on until the end of 1963 Model Year, from whence until the end of 1969 MY production it was St Therese, Quebec or Oshawa, Ontario save that Chevy II Novas for export including Canada switched to Willow Run, MI in late 1967 and I believe that those exported to South Africa to the end of 1969 MY would have been from Willow Run.

Morning David:

It is really a pleasure to have a practicing Historian on the Forum!!

You have now corrected a wrong impression that I have had for over 40 years regarding the origin of GM RHD vehicles.

Interesting to note that here in the US we receive LHD Monaros reworked as a Pontiac GTO from Australia. My how things change!

Referring back to the original question, do you know of any source (website) that may yield more photos of the US style vehicles that found their way to the Middle East in the years 1934-1939?? This area and this era has always fascinated me but I have gotten maybe only 20 or so photos of those vehicles, quite many of them here just lately. Also any photos of such vehicles sent to Afghanistan, India, Persia etc. I have lots of the Marmon Herrington stuff that went to Persia but not much on the other two countries nor much else on Persia and I am sure they imported a wider range of vehicles than just MH.

Thanks again very much for your input.
Bill

Reply
 

1. We got the Vauxhall Monaro in various forms, thanks to the GTO really.

2. As regards Mod-East Chevs, one answer is printed photos perhaps in GENERAL MOTORS WORLD, which the Detroit Auto Library section have I think. Also, National Motor Museum, Beaulieu. This is an interesting question and I shall have to delve further in the meantime.

3. I am not nearly as brilliant as Hanno, our Australian friends, Mr Freathy, and numerous others who are outstanding in their knowledge.

The trucks on the pic were definitely NOT in italian service. Will post two more pics soon (my line is very bad at that moment). :(

Here the first pic:

Ford?
 

1935 or 36 Ford? Note the WD rego plate, half Arabic, the other I think said 'WD and a serial number'.

2. picture

Thanks Kuno, great shots!!!

I believe the last two to be 1935 models. They seem to have the single stripe on the front bumper and do not seem to have the "Ford" badge moved round to the side of the bonnet just behind the headlamps which are about the only two differences between a 1935 and a 1936.
One sticky point is that the l935 model still had wire wheels as standard, the 1936 had solid steel wheels but this could have been a field modification on these vehicles if they are in fact 1935 models.

Do you have a date for the photos, Kuno??