FWD HAR-01

[Bob Phillips]

I would like to add a few comments re FWD vehicles now that this thread has been revived. I live just a few miles from Kitchener Ontario in Canada where the FWD company had their canadian assembly plant. trucks arrived in a broken down state from the home factory (Clintonville Wisconsin I think) and were reassembled in Kitchener. I have attached a photo from the early war years. The site is long since redeveloped and after the war FWD made a variety of heavy trucks using International cabs. In my 40 years of prowling through junkyards and farmyards looking for military vehicles in Ontario, I can tell you that the FWD was not very common here though I found several o ver the years. Today they are non existent except for a few hoarded away by collectors. I owned a cab over version with a twin boom Holmes wrecker that had been operated by De Havilland aircraft but the wrecker went to Holland and the truck to a collector in the Ottawa area. They were neat trucks with wooden framed cabs that unfortunately didn't survive Ontario weather conditions very well. I also seem to recall that while they were slow moving vehicles ( same as CMPs) the speed reduction occurred in the chain drive transfer case. I still have a NOS transfer case buried in a van body here somewhere. I can post a few pictures of the old trucks that were here years ago if anyone is interested.

FWD-kw.jpeg FWD-coe.jpg

[jack neville]

Serial number of the garden art truck is 147564.

[jack neville]

These AWM photos show truck#147755 (?)
I don't know how many of these trucks came to Australia but as tow vehicles for radar units there would not have been many I would not think.
If someone knows how to decipher the ARN registers could they let me know.
Interesting they only have one headlight-on the right side, as we drive on the left in Australia. Maybe?

[Grant Bowker]

I have the idea that the US contracts for the HAR had two headlights but the commonwealth contracts only had one. I don't recall the source for that belief, possibly the Observer's Handbook by Bart Vanderveen?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

What a great project to take on Jack, you are to be commended.

Have you read the article “FWD HAR-Series Trucks” in Wheels & Tracks issue no. 5?

[jack neville]

Thanks Hanno.

Yes I have all the Wheels and Tracks. Some very good information in that article.
I think the HAR 01 will be a lonely project with little resource material to draw on.
I have HAR1 manual copies but there are a lot of differences to the HAR 01.
Very few photos so far located.
At this stage there appears to be one restored in the UK, none restored in Australia that I am aware of and no other restoration projects being undertaken that I know of.
I hope to be proven wrong.

[Mike Cecil]

Jack wrote: I don't know how many of these trucks came to Australia but as tow vehicles for radar units there would not have been many I would not think.

Based on AWM126, there were a minimum of 58 HAR-01 tractors (all I've located - there may be others), 28 configured as type 'A' with radar trailer type 'A'; 25 configured as type 'B' with radar trailer type 'B', and five where the description does not include radar or type, but the engine and chassis numbers fall within the overall sequence of the total.

If someone knows how to decipher the ARN registers could they let me know.

What part of the entry are you having trouble with? For ARN 147564, which is identified as a 'Auto Coy' truck, with a load rating of 6 ton, engine number 527354, no chassis number listed, model 'HAR', and taken on charge at 'VB', which is the abbreviation for Victoria Barracks. Problem is, there are/were two Victoria Barracks - in Sydney and in Melbourne. Disposal information in red ink indicates sold to York Motors under Sales Advice Note 3657. The use of red ink indicates disposal soon after the end of the Second World War.

Hope that helps. Nice but difficult project due to the scarcity of parts and information.


Mike