Hamilton's own Armoured Car

[Jordan Baker]

Hi everyone.

I just got the book "Hamilton at War, On the Home Front" by Margaret Houghton the other day for my birthday. One of the capters was on an armoured car that Hamilton's Home defense Force had had made for the defense of Hamilton.

The first was delivered on Aug 24, 1940. It states that a "heavy truck chassis from International Harvester was armoured from stern to stern with welded armour plate provided by a local steel mill and assembeld by Hamilton Bridge Company to a completely original design." The chapter goes on that the armoured car "was entierly Hamilton made with the exception of the revolving machine gun turret which had to be built in Toronto. A 45 caliber Thompson sub machine gun was installed in the turret."

There was also radio equipment installed to receive calls from police headquarters.

Its other attributes were that it weighed 5 tons and coudl reach 60 mph. (Id love to see it stop in a hurry at those speeds)

The funny part was that it was planned to house it at the Central Police station. However it turned out to big to fit the door and they had to relocate it to an east end fire station.

Unfourtunaltey when the Hamilton Home guard stood down in 1945 its fate was uncertain. Both the fire and jail commitee want to dismantle it to use the chassis for a service truck. This resulted in a big argument over it as the Hamilton Auxiliary Defense Corps said it belonged to them and not the Fire and Jail commitees and that the City had little jurisdiction over it. However it had been licensed under the city because the Hamilton Auxiliary Defense Corps was not incorporated. Its fate is not exactly known as there was no sign of it in the Hamilton Police Department's annual report for 1945.

The text above and the photos below were paraphraised from the book.

I ahve also found a bunch of Spectator articles on the internet anout the armoured car. I will try to post copies of them over the next few days.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what kind of chassis would have been used? Also what kind of engine. I have tried finding more photos but no luck. I will try and get in touch with the author to find out if she has any more ideas.