Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/08/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Interesting shots of a superbly preserved vehicle, Sonny, A lovely toy for big boys. Keep your sportscars, these are the beasts I like. Real bastards to drive, gas-guzzlers and hard to get spares for. Owners tend to spend more time under them than in them - but that's all part of the fun. I think it might actually be a post-war, Hotchkiss M201** licence-built in France, not a US Willys MB or Ford GP, but with a very nicely reproduced OD WWII paint job - still a Jeep (Hotchkiss had a factory called WOF = Willys of France), and IMHO a gorgeous vehicle, but purist military vehicle collectors tend to turn up their noses at them because they were built in 1950 and later. I certainly wouldn't say no to one, though a Dodge WC-51 in good conditon would be more to my liking (but much too expensive). Some boys have bigger toys - I chatted to the owner of this wonderfully preserved WW II AEC Matador a couple of years ago, his father bought it army surplus in about 1950 for his heavy vehicle breakdown and recovery service on the Yorkshire coast. Probably the most common British army truck and artillery tractor in WW II, and often reported to be the most reliable and a pleasure to drive - despite its crash box (unsynced gearbox). He told me his dad had some even bigger stuff like a Ward LaFrance 6-WD Wrecker and a Diamond T ballast tractor (towing unit for a tank transporter, and probably the best looking WW II truck there ever was), and a couple of GMC "Jimmys" he was planning to get back into as-new condition. I must look him up sometime. He does pretty good business hiring them out to film crews. http://gallery.leica-users.org/d/172853-1/20070812-_MG_6698-Edit.jpg Cheers Douglas **(Sorry I'm a scale model builder [aka rivet-counter] - the rear brake light is flat surfaced with a slit on the M201, on the MB its indented, the little chain on the pintle-hook is Hotchkiss too. The back of the black-out lamps on the MB are hemispherical and flatter on the M201) Sonny Carter wrote: > Love Mark's Jeep. Today on the way to breakfast I spotted this parked > downtown > > http://www.sonc.com/2nd_Armored_82_recon.htm > > >