vintage chevrolet holden trucks

hi i am new to this site,, i recently bought 2 rhd vintage chev trucks, rhd, they also have holden id plates and badging,, i am having trouble with the exact model/year of these,, i think one is about a 1939, the other about a 1941,, anyone give me any ideas on info? will endeavour to post pics soon,, cheers

Hi pringo the Holden badge is saying the truck has cab made by Holden in Sydney or Melbourne at fishermans bend it was common on trucks and cars that came here in a form called CKD (complete knock down). Dave

Sounds like you might have Bedfords which were an improved version of the Chev from about 1932 (Both are a General Motors product) and as Deadly says were bodied by Holden who were also owned by GM by that time.
Put some pictures up and will be easy to see what we are talking about.

www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.101503...&type=1&l=f1282b9319

hi guys had dramas loading pics so try the link i hope it works,, thanks for the help

Pringo - Those trucks are a nice find. Very complete and highly restorable. They are around 1940 - 1942 Chevs (definitely not before 1940), and both appear to be ex-military trucks.
The civilian Chev trucks imported into Australia in the late 1930's came from GM's Canada factories. As Canada was/is part of the Commonwealth, imports from Canada did not have same level of import duties applied as did imports from the U.S. Thus, GM could compete on price better with Canadian-built products, than American ones.
Accordingly, these 1930's Chev trucks were known as "Maple Leaf" Chevs (the Maple Leaf being the well-known Canadian symbol).

These trucks would have been ordered by the Govt for War service, and the majority of the drivetrain came from GM Canadian factories in crates, and the trucks were assembled here, with the bodies being built by GMH in the Holden factories.
The model number of the Chevs is clearly shown on the ID plate.

These are a good find, most of the WW2 stuff is beaten up and rusted away by now. It's even better to find trucks that haven't been modified so much, they barely resemble the original.

You will find the "Maple Leaf Up" forum a useful source of information on these trucks.
They are excellent trucks, reliable, good to drive, easy to fix, and a good supply of parts available, as so many were built.

Maple Leaf Up forums .. mapleleafup.net/forums/index.php?s=d1908...3a4746b7012edeb75413

thanks a lot for the tips!! biggest difference i found between the two are as follows,, green truck has a front window that winds out at the bottom and one piece door windows,, it has a spacer on the front wheels approx 5 inches each side which appears to align the track with the rear track, single wheel at rear, front bumper is very thick compared to the red truck, the tray appears to be an original and even has the gates although most of the timber is fairly rotten externally but main beams are good,,it is complete with the clips for the gates,,,,,,,,,,, red truck has a fixed two piece front window, two piece windows in the doors, dual rear wheels and foot vents, a holden emblem on the lhs just in front of the door,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,, both trucks are 6cyl but the green one seems to be a lot heavier in the steel,, both about same length,, red one is 5.8 overall to back of chassis and green one is 6.3m including the tray,, any help is appreciated thanks pringo

Pringo yes they war time trucks and I say are Lend Lease Chev's 1942 -45 because the yanks were late in getting involed in a big way it took the bombing of Pearl Harbour .

We have few of theses models in HCVCA but still worth the pick up I like the tray on the green one. Dave

Pringo - The differences in the green one, are that it is a "standard" military truck .. with the differences you've outlined, being the changes made to the civilian truck design, to suit the military requirements and order specifications.
The Chevrolet truck model number is on the ID plate, but I can't read it. It's model 154X, either 1546 or 1548? This model number will assist you in tracking down the military specification model details.

The red truck is very late 1940 or 1941 (a 1941 year model), the green truck is 1942 or later. The design of these trucks altered very little between 1941 and 1946.
The green truck has three horizontal bars along the bonnet side curtain louvres, that identify it as 1942 or later. Late 1940 to '41 trucks didn't have those three horizontal bars.

All civilian car & truck production ceased in Feb 1942 in America, by Govt order, as the car factories were turned over to military truck and tank production. Thus, civilian trucks were not produced in 1942.
All trucks produced in 1942 were military trucks. Starting in late 1943, some civilian truck production resumed on a small scale, to supply those civilians who were on a "priority" list, and who were engaged in vital war support work, such as food production.

The "Lend-Lease" Act was passed in early 1941, which Act enabled the Americans to boost supplies of trucks to Allies, without the Allies having to find the money immediately to pay for them.
The trucks and other American military equipment were effectively "lent" to the Allies for the duration of the War.

The big single wheels with identical track front and rear were a military desert design specification, for use in desert areas where there were a lot of sand dunes.
In 1941 and to mid-1942, Australian troops were concentrated in the Middle East, and desert-specification vehicles were needed and supplied.
The big single tyres, and aligned wheel track, assisted in operation in sand dune areas.

The most famous of these style of desert-spec trucks was the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) trucks, that initiated this desert-operation style of truck specification.

The LRDG blokes (British, Rhodesian, Canadian and NZ troops) operated behind enemy lines in the desert in Libya, and gave the Italians in particular, a hard time with their commando operations, destroying a lot of Italian equipment, and gathering intelligence on Italian movements and force sizes.

1941 Chevy truck .. www.flickr.com/photos/44323995@N03/44085...et-72157624928898564

David Mottram's 1942 military Chevy .. www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&...ewarticle&artid=2844

The LRDG group - Wikipedia .. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Desert_Group

O.K., I did some more research, and the green truck is a Model 6-1543, and more commonly known as the Chevrolet CC60L. It should have a 160" wheelbase and be rated at 3 tons capacity.
The LRDG trucks were Model 1533's.

These were known as "modified civilian trucks" by GM Canada, and they came from the GM Canadian factories in Oshawa, Walkerville and Regina.
Production of the 1941 models commenced in November 1940. The precise nomenclature of the trucks is the "MCP" (Modified Conventional Pattern).
The other military Chev (and Ford) trucks built in Canada are commonly known as the "Blitz", and these are correctly known as the "CMP" (Canadian Military Pattern).
There's a "Blitz" in your photos, alongside your trucks in the shed.

The CC60L came in 3 versions ..

CC60LX1 - fitted with dual rear civilian wheels
CC60LX2 - fitted with single rear military wheels
CC60LX3 - fitted with dual rear civilian wheels

The X-number also indicates the country (order specifications) that the model was built for.
It also appears that the X-number may have been dropped later in the War, and the lengthy model number (-36889) replaced it.

According to this following website (link below) .. which is hard to follow, because the information is badly laid out .. the first number on the ID plate indicates the year of build.
Thus the "6" in the number is supposed to indicate 1946 year of build, according to the website.
I would be surprised if it really was a 1946 model, because the Australian military cancelled all war equipment orders upon cessation of the War, in late August 1945.
I suspect the website is wrong, and the "6" is just part of the model number.

You will find out more by doing a Google search for "Chevrolet CC60L". You will find pics of them being used by the German Afrika Corps, after the Germans captured some of them in the early disastrous Allied losses of WW2.

CANADIAN CHEVROLET GMC/PONTIAC SERIAL NUMBERS AND ENGINE NUMBERS .. hotrod.gregwapling.com/chev-trucks-47-55/canadian-chev.html

I notice you're in S.A. The Holden historical library collection is in the State Library of S.A. If you have time, you may wish to peruse this collection, and maybe find out something about Holdens military truck production during WW2.

www.catalog.slsa.sa.gov.au/record=b2182756~S1

Here's an informative, recent discussion on Maple Leaf Up, about the MCP trucks, both Chev and Ford. There are numerous pics of Australian trucks on this thread.
The production figures listed are interesting. There were only 6000 of the 4x2, 3 ton Chevs built, whereas there were 209,000 of the 4x4, 3 ton Chevs built.

MCP trucks .. www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=16609

Another MLU thread on an Australian MCP restoration .. www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=13515

Cheers - Ron.