2 Pounder Carrier discovered and recovered

[Jared Archibald]

G'day,
an excellent find - another hull surfaces after many hard years of service.

There were two brass plates affixed to this model carrier. The first was the ID plate. This was fastened to the flat triangular plate above the dashboard/control panel. This area can still be seen on Luke's hull. It stated “CARRIER. A.T. 2-PDR // AUSTRALIA // SERIAL No.6xxx”. The second was the builders plate and this was affixed to the bulkhead directly behind the drivers head. This stated “MADE BY THE METROPOLITAN GAS Co. // MELBOURNE”. This bulkhead has been oxyed out of Luke's hull.

However, the hull humber/serial number was stamped in large numerals (half inch high) on the centre front towing eye. It is stamped on the angled part welded to the glacis plate, not on the horizontal part of the eye. As Bob mentioned earlier, the serial numbers started at 6000 and 200 were produced. I don’t know if the first ten were stamped with one numeral (ie. 1) or were stamped 01, but from 10 onwards only the last two digits of the serial were stamped. For example, a hull stamped with 25 indicates a serial number of 6025. A three figure stamped number just needs a 6 placed at the front of it ie. 142 is actually serial number 6142. I look forward to finding out the ID of this new hull.

A couple of points also:- sitting on the left hand rear of the hull in the photos is one of the fold-up crew seats. Keep hold of it. On top of the engine compartment is a fan shroud. It appears large enough to be the original. If it is, the fan hole will be offset to one side and there is a depression in one part of it (as in the radiator lower tank) for clearance for the driveshaft.

This hull is a great start to what will be a very interesting project. Is Luke going to join MLU? If he has more questions, post them on the forum and between us all we should be able to answer them.

Jared