[motto]

The state of Victoria ceased registering L/H drive vehicles in 1948 except for special purpose vehicles such as mobile cranes and water tankers. I suspect other states did likewise at around the same time. The reason given was that LHD vehicles were supposedly disproportionately represented in road accident statistics.

The result of the ban on registration of LHD vehicles in Victoria was that the vast majority of US sourced WW2 vehicles released to the public were converted to RHD along with most of the M series trucks. John Belfield had a steady flow of work from one of the bigger surplus dealers at one time carrying out RHD conversions on the M series. Johns work was excellent but the variation in the quality of the conversions was enormous as many of them were done in home workshops using whatever came to hand. This particularly applied to '42 Jeeps. Few of them steered anything like the original.

The LHD situation was eased in Victoria only a few years ago with the advent of the Club Permit scheme which allows road use of a vehicle over twenty five years old for either 45 or 90 days for $70 or $140 accordingly. LHD is quite acceptable for permit vehicles.

What the current situation is in South Australia I don't know but the RHD conversion of the M151 would have been necessary to get the vehicle road registered at the time.

David