1943 Chevrolet

 

Looks like a Lend Lease model. I've never seen one like that with the blackout driving light still attached next to the main headlight, the blackout driving lights are always missing, that one has had the blackout insert replaced with a standard insert or maybe someone has removed the metal blqckout cover over the glass.  

 

Mike

Certainly a North American cab in excellent condition. A much better and more usable restoration project than say, a Blitz. They are really nice trucks to drive.

I have serious doubts that they were originally fitted with the black-out driving light and it may have been added during or after service. Many tractor lights had exactly the same body design as the blackout light so maybe a farmer mod?

You can not tell from restorations as people tend to trick them up but.....

Looks like at least some had the black out light. Any photos of Australian cab versions are without them. The Canadian/American produced units seem to have had them.

In these shots you can see a lend/lease Chevrolet in Russia new and an Australian (American cab)  vehicle with the light attachment holes clearly visible.

 

 

A US guy  commented on another forum, that some of these Chevs were fitted with Ford style 6 stud wheels in North America,  he reckons it was a attempt to standardise the wheels. 

There are various files available in the Australian  national archives online, on Lend Lease trucks. The files are long and many pages, hours of reading on administration stuff . 

Yes that light does look like a farmer mod, but these LL trucks did have blackout light mounted  there as seen in wartime pics. 

Some of these also had the oil dipper 235 engine , but most of them I've seen have the usual 216 motor . Think of how many farmers had one of these trucks , must have been thousands of them in use.

Some of the farm wrecks  have the odd sized  18 inch Aust Army wheels still fitted. These divided rims were manufactured here by GMH and Ford. 

Although these are universally called lend/lease Chevrolets the actual situation with the lend/lease program is highly complicated as we have discussed on the forum before.

Obviously the lend/lease program was devised to allow Britain to carry on after they became basically bankrupt and could not pay American suppliers any more. Russia was later included. A number of other countries joined the program.

Australia was a minor player. A high percentage of Australian acquisitions right throughout the war were actually paid for as we still had gold reserves (although there were attempts by the British to use these to their benefit). The fact most of our vehicles were coming from Canada on a commercial basis reduced our exposure.

As we have seen, Australia supplied the US Forces so much, food, accommodation, transport, equipment etc etc that at the end of the war our lend/lease bill was almost insignificant and was settled within 12 months. The British of course took over 50 years to pay their debt to USA. Naturally Russia and China tore up their bills and threw it in the trash at the end of the war.

This page indicates the Australian govt. put in a order for 40,000 trucks . But that seems like a high number and the actual  number of LL  trucks that arrived was probably lower ? Before Roosevelt signed the  the LL act,  there was a Australian govt. guy based in New York and he was looking for truck suppliers .

I found one interesting document where MacArthur said any vehicles that Australia needed were to be ordered through himself. 

One Australian  newspaper report stated that all of the LL Jeeps were being returned to the USA. 

Somebody could write a book on this subject, not me !