Right now I am just in the research phase of the build. I obtained these 2 photos a few more from a good friend and fellow member of the regiment that this jeep belongs to. While he and I would serve 40 years later, I wanted to try my hand in scratch building and to honor my fellow Buffalos who served during the Korean War. Comments and suggestion are welcome with open arms.
These photos and others are in the following album of mine:

https://gallery.kitmaker.net/showgallery.php/cat/28158



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These guys had some serious 1:1 scratchbuilding skills !!

Thanks for these pics.

H.P.

Hi,

difficult to recognise a Jeep ! (and to find the front and the rear )

Thanks for the pics

nico

Edward,

Great pictures, that will make a lovely scratch building exersise, thankyou for shareing.

Paul

Uh oh! Watch out or DML will come out with a Cyber Hobby kit version of this! LOL

It seems to be a rear engined jeep! A heck of a job to move steering and all that stuff to the rear of the vehicle.

That looks more like a movie prop, to me, rather than any thing real.

Looks as if it was made to look like a New Zealand Pattern Carrier.
Can`t think of any other reason to make it.


Malc

I'm actually pretty much with Malc...

Looks pretty cool but I'm way un-convinced that this was for real. Looks to me like another one of those weird contraptions like that 5.0cm PaK 38-in-Sd.Kfz 250 rig CH recently kitted. Only even more improbable as a real military vehicle.

Unless all that "armor" was thin sheet -metal, that Jeep would be about flat on the ground - add in the crew and the guns and... even a 1/4 or 1/2 inch (ca 12.7mm) plate would be many hundreds of pounds. And yet this thing does't look near to squatting down on its springs! I know... coil-overs!

From what I can see: this thing has been completely rearranged from the JEEP - engine to the rear and radiator beyond, steering and driver's position brought forward into what would have been the engine-compartment. Looks almost like a Daimler Dingo set-up. And like a whole lot of work to make this. Not like one was taking a bashed Jeep and rebuilding it as a small armored-car in any unit shop.

The question really would be "why do this?" Jeeps were notoriously unstable already. And by no means "over-powered". The added armor and higher profile and higher crew positions shown here would raise the center of grav and make this terrrrible indeed. Any lateral slope, rolling into a small dip on one side, or even turning at any speed, would likely have it over on its side. It would have been extremely over-burdened and unable to get out of its own way on any but level road. And rear-cooling like shown would require some considerable air-assist, I think, to cope with the much greater engine loading and heat.

The gun arrangement would make things decidely un-ergonomic for all gunners - and firing that recoilless rifle would definitely only occur if the loader got off of the vehicle, or he would certainly get off...

It DOES indeed look more like some sort of movie-prop or something than any serious shop-build armored car, to me.

But what a cool cool scratch-built project! (Nooooo. Please STAY AWAY, Cyber-Hobby! You (and we) don't need to go here!

Bob

Well, the frame and drive train might be from a Jeep (M38?), but the grill sure isn't a standard MB or M38 grill.

It has 8 vertical members vice 6 for the MB or M38. Also, both the MB and M38 have headlight bulges into the grill area which are absent from this. Finally, the grill on this beastie appears to be considerably taller than the standard MB or M38 grill. The hood is also something that's been specially fabricated and is not a standard military Jeep part.

I suppose it's possible that the builders used multiple MB or M38 grills and did some sort of sheet-metal composition build up. There is a line of what looks like weld-joins along the lower third of the grill verticals. Hard to say for sure, though.

At any rate, it's suggestive to me that the engine might not be a standard MB or M38 engine or maybe a larger (taller) radiator was used to compensate for lack of free cooling air-flow. (One of the gallery photos shows the cooling grates on the sides that are hard to see in some of the other photos.)

I'd also imagine that any guys skilled enough to do this sort of work would also have been skilled enough to add a couple of extra leaves to the springs to compensate for the increased load. This is much more than just a Jeep with a simple new armored body bolted on.

I'm thoroughly convinced that this is a genuine one-off built by a bunch of guys with plenty of tools, spare parts, and time on their hands for convoy, base-camp, or perhaps airfield security purposes. Good ol' Yankee ingenuity.

It's a great subject and project, though, Edward! (Love that ball mounted .30 on the front...)

Thanks for sharing and good luck on the build!

To answer some of the comments, questions that have been posted. No it is not some movie prop, it was used during the Korean War.
My friend Don got it from a member of the our Regiment Association (17th Inf), who took the pictures. From what I got from Don it belong to the I & R unit and its a converted jeep. What type we're not sure. He's working with me to try and get more information on its actual use, etc.

I would have to agree that it isn't any real thick armor, possible a little thinker than say a gun shield. Especially, when you look at the second photo and examine the rear portions of the plating.

Looking at the equipment in the background, I'd place the time frame 52 the earliest it was taken. Once the war became the battle for the outpost/ ridge lines along the 38th line. The reason I think this, is knowing the history of the regiment and its constant movement during the earlier years, I don't see them putting up GP medium tents.

I'll post more info or work in progress as they develope

what was the serial number originally allocated to??

Not sure.

Wanted to correct something that I wrote in my earlier post.

The grill on this vehicle does appear to be fabricated from two Willys-type (i.e. WWII type) MB Jeep grills.

Earlier I had posted that it had the incorrect number of vertical members (8) for the MB and the M38, and I also noted that it didn't show the headlight bulges into the grill area that are characteristic of the MB and M38. This was incorrect, as the grills on the MB and M38 are not identical.

The M38 grill has six (6) vertical members and headlight bulges (it also has larger headlights than the MB).

The MB does in fact have eight (8) vertical members and no headlight bulges (it has smaller headlights than the later M38).

The illustrated grill appears to be made from two MB grills, a full-sized grill on top (with the head and driving light openings covered) and the bottom third (approx) of a second grill on the bottom to make the entire assembly taller than the standard.

Just wanted to correct my earlier statement.

Could it be based on a British dingo?

hello,
a beautiful project in perspective
steph

The base is a G503, either MB or GPW. The grill is two stacked, the front and rear axels have been switched, so the front is what used to be the back. The most identifying points are the top part of the grill and the full floating rear axel.