WW2 Surplus Trucks

Just a small section of the parking lot at Mourmelon in France early 1946.

Most of these vehicles were given to European allied countries to rebuild their armies after the war as aid - not Lend Lease. France was the biggest recipient but Holland, Belgium and even Germany got their share. None of this stuff could be shipped back to USA or it would have wrecked their automobile industry by flooding the market.

Even today France and Holland are the main suppliers of GMC 6x6 to the collector market.






Just as an aside I had one of those GMC workshop body trucks (military outside, motor home inside) on my first driving trip to Normandy for the 45th anniversary in 1989. I have seldom heard anyone who did not love driving these 6x6 machines, light on the steering and they just sing on the road and can keep up with jeeps on a trip.

In the fourth row you can see the pre-43 hard top cabs with later soft tops in the foreground. The second paddock over are thousands of Dodge 3/4 ton weapon carriers. I would love to know what is amongst the thousands stretching to the horizon in the background.



To put it in perspective. During WW2 the following were the production figures:

Jeeps (Ford and Willys) 640,000
GMC 2 1/2 ton 6x6 572,000 plus 21,000 DUKW ("Duck" amphibious version)
Studebaker 2 1/2 ton 6x6 200,000 the majority went to Russia
Dodge 1/2 and 3/4 ton Weapon Carrier 4x4 340,000

Found a photo of our motorhome on the 1989 Normandy gathering. I put up about 4,500km on it before selling it again in UK. Never missed a beat.Two pictures in France (I still had a black beard in 89!) and the first one lined up to go on the cross channel ferry at Southampton with Bev sitting up like a happy little Vegemite as usual. . When we got off I was second in line behind an International half-track. I thought it would be slow but the bloody thing went like a rocket and I could hardly keep up with it. All I could hear was a deep exhaust and a hissing sound from the rubber tracks









.Here is the half-track

Jeeps from continental USA surplus going for sale.




Jeeps from European surplus for aid or sale.




Bikes coming back.

Just a little story on my GMC.

For the navel-gazers who may have noticed it has different bonnet numbers from the Southampton photo and in France 10 days later. The Pom I bought it off had just invented a suitable number and stuck it on. Lo and behold, we were having a cup of coffee in a small village when a Dutchman in a Dodge weapon carrier pulled up. In the back was a huge box with shelves full of manuals. He came over and asked to check my truck serial number stamp on the dashboard.

!0 minutes later he rolls back up with a folder about 4 inches thick (in the days before Google).

" I have found your truck in the General Motors Army delivery documents (out of half a million!!!!). It was not too hard because it was very small production workshop bodies, I just looked up the date on your dashboard plate and cross referenced it to the vehicles delivered to the Army that day. Here is your original Army bonnet (hood) number."

On the way home I called into a sign shop and he cut out a set of numbers while I waited, including the "correct" star on the side of the cab. Totally unnecessary but what a nice touch. I did buy the Dutchman and his missus a cup of coffee.

Lang

Lang -two of my brothers would cry seeing a photo of those jeeps- they'd both love to have that many in their back yards. Pete

Yeah, I gave it a shot back in 1970. I was based at Oakey and lived in Toowoomba and often I would hook up a trailer and head west on weekends to come back with jeeps. In those days it would have to be a good runner to pay $300 (they are asking 30-40,000 now). At one stage I peaked at 21 jeeps in the backyard and the council bloke arrived to ask if I could at least line them up to look a bit neater.

I could lift a whole body off by myself in those days, lucky to lift a mudguard today.

Luckily I moved to Brisbane before raising my sights to larger trucks.


Toowoomba backyard

Bloody amazing pics Lang.
Imagine the cost of all this stuff.....

Some of those JEEPs look like they've been through a war!

You weren't trying, Lang. The Toowoomba yard wasn't even half full.

I got posted to PNG and sold the whole lot (including a ton of NOS spares) as a bulk lot for less than 1/3 the price of one jeep today. In the intervening 50 years I still have owned another dozen jeeps, sold my last one just before Xmas.