Axis and Axles
Bill, Hanno, David,
In my ignorance I always mix up Axis powers and powered axles.
Yes, Romania employed Ford/M-H COE trucks as prime movers and there are pics of these in Vanderveen pre-1940 book.
But I meant Hungary. According to Vanderveen (1989 Directory p.114 and 208), Ford Cologne built American 1939 pattern 4x2 Fords during 1939-42 and sent no less than 1500 of these Ford G917's to Manfred Weiss in Hungary.
Front-drive components were added by Manfred Weiss "to Marmon-Herrington design". The Fords were called Ford G917T 'Marmon' in Hungarian service.
So, at least Weiss (we know them for building Turan tanks and Straussler designed armoured cars similar to the Alvis-Straussler AC3 series) received the design of M-H axles through Ford Cologne and apparently took the initiative to paste and copy.
But the Hungarians acknowledged the origin of the FWD version, as it ('Marmon') appeared in the name of the truck!
Or did Manfred Weiss have a licence after all? Even when war was raging they took the effort to procure licences from Ford. The Ford V3000S was licence-produced by MW from 1941-44.
Greetings,
Nuyt
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