Delbert Davis shares with us a walk around of the 1939 Ford Maultier.

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Very Cool !!!

mil

Some photos of this vehicle before it went to fight on the Eastern Front ( in PA that is.) (All photos from Lowell, IN. - All photos by Michael Koenig)

Additional photos of this vehicle before it went to fight on the Eastern Front ( in PA that is.) (All photos from Lowell, IN. - All photos by Michael Koenig)

Hm, interesting vehicle. I'm going to stick my neck out here and guess that this is a post-war chop to an existing American Ford despite the "provenance". It has a split screen which is surely the sign of an American built vehicle. I note in Michael's photos that it bears a WH number plate, incidentally the SS plate commencing with a 0 is not correct, this would have been a 5 digit number there was no 0 prefix. While it is true that the first Maultiers were extemporised in the field, and the half track unit would appear to be a Carden-Lloyd type which would be correct, my sources advise that the first ones were built by 2SS Das Reich.

I won't argue for or against it being accurate. I have noticed you never know how accurate something is in the Re-enacting meets. As you said it is an interesting vehicle which is why it caught my eye...

I think Delbert (and I ) are saying we are not so sure the split windscreen is the end all and be all of determining continent of manufacture on these Ford trucks.

One thing I wanted to add was that I was told at the Lowell event (second hand) that this vehicle could be traced back as far as 1949 in Alaska.

I have always been tempted to model this vehicle and now that the Ford truck is finally available in 1/35 that just might become a reality.

Yeah, I kind of expected having stuck my neck out to get it chopped off!
Wonder if the top photo shows captured French stock, registration plate doesn't look German, could almost even be British. I'm just reading a book about Hitler's Tank Heist - German use of captured equipment. The French Ford subsidiary carried on producing trucks for the Wehrmacht after the end of the French campaign. Did French Fords have split screens?

I've been reading that along with the Ford plant in Cologne Germany there were Ford plants in occupied Belgium, Holland and Vichy France and that they were all used to make trucks for the Germans.

I'm a bit pressed for time so I only briefly skimmed the comments but I just want to point out that there were some Ford plants in Germany during WWII and they did in fact use Ford trucks. Of course, the production numbers in the German factories are modest at best when you compare them to the US factory output.

If all of that has already been said I apologize hahaha

It looks like the universal carrier suspension as it has the single wheel among the track

Here is a rare wooden cab version I photographed during Militracks 2013:

Very cool pics here. Now that I have seen the Mule with the wooden cab and ford front end I just have to assemble the stuff for it and build one. Way cool.
J

Just a reminder, the Ford with the wooden cab is a true production Maultier whereas the other Ford is a chop shop fabrication. Not to say either is any less correct as the Russians chopped together a lot of odd combos. The first vehicle came by way of Alaska so I think it is fair to say it was a Russian wartime creation.

Interesting related build - Can be viewed at:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/207557


If ICM is smart they will be comming out with the Maultier version in no time but if not then this would certainly be an interesting conversion!