Civvy 5/4 ton look alike vehicles in CF service

[Robin Craig]

I am not sure if I have posted these before.

These two once hung around the Ottawa area before I knew anything about CF vehicles, I just snapped away with no care in the world.

Can anyone pass some informed comments on them?

[Ed Storey]

CFR 77828 is a Chevrolet CK20903 1 ton 4x4 Custom Delux ECC 143152. A total of 71 were purchased in 1986.

[rob love]

The white one is interesting. It is an early pattern van box (round wheel wells) on a commercial truck. I don't think it is an ambulance as it has the power access panel on the side, although again, since it's an early box, I can't say for certrain.

It may well be an OSCAR. I remember seeing them as M152s back in the day, so perhaps a commercial equivalent was made rather than using up a more expensive SMP 5/4 ton.

The truck itself is a little later than the 5/4 ton as evidenced by the horizontal marker lights on the fender. It also has a much lighter bumper than the 5/4 ton and no bush guard.

I have to wonder how they power the gas heater up on the box. They were typically in 24volt, although they were available commercially in 12 volt.

[rob love]

Re the second truck, it was quite common for the commercial fleet to have superstructures and tarps. They were nowhere near as good as the superstructures on the 5/4 ton gas. In fact, neither were the superstructures on the CUCV. There was an instruction that if the tarp and superstructure failed on a CUCV, all of the 5/4 ton gas superstructure and tarp components were to be ordered and installed.

[Frank v R]

do you have a paper copy of that, it would be great to add that msg into my CF CUCV files,

[John Genereux]

Hi Rob, those one tons in the above post you are talking about, did they come with a manual 4 speed? I remember on my drivers course back in 1985 that we had a small fleet (maybe 5) at my unit of this model. They were fun to drive, and had plenty, if not too much, power under your right foot.