A little information is a dangerous thing....
The T214 3/4 ton WC 54 Ambulance was all that they made on the production line, in fact the conventional ambulance and Weapons Carriers accounted for over half the Dodge production of that basic chassis.
In the half ton series, (T207, T211, T215) the only 'radio' truck was the T215 half ton panel van WC 42, (650 off) but that was made for the Commonwealth forces as all the US radio units were installed in Command and Carryall trucks.
When the 3/4 ton T214 series came out the US had radio as standard in the WC 58 Command Radio, but the WC53 Carryall and WC 56 / 57 Command recon were 12 volt trucks with radio fittings which meant you could install one easily. Late in WW2 all these truck types were discontinued and the Weapons Carrier went to 12 volt, which meant if you wanted a radio truck you just put a radio in your new Weapons Carrier.
So, where did all the 'WC 54 - like' radio trucks come from then? Simple really, WC 54s were very common, per the production split mentioned above, so they threw away the stretchers and painted over the red crosses on a bunch of ambulances to get what was in effect a 3/4 ton radio panel truck - but no sign it was ever official. Logically whoever did it should also have changed generator / starter / regulator / bulbs / guages and put on some extra bonding to be able to use 12 volt systems, but I don't know if they did.
The T214 'radio truck conspiracy' was perpetuated by the model companies who took the basic casting for the WC 54 model and just painted it to suit any number of applications - I've seen them modelled as ambulances, radio trucks, fire trucks, and civilian contruction trucks.
There's nothing wrong with having a WC 54 marked up as a radio truck, in fact the Norwegians used a bunch of them that way, and I'm sure I've seen WW2 photos of them being used that way, but when they left the Mound Road production line they all had white crosses on, and if you have the original dash plate it'll have AMBULANCE on it. Wayne Works did all those bodies, and the body tag would be 4239-xxxxx.
I feel SO much better now.
