Contract V.4528 = Z 4645001 - 4647000 "Truck 15-cwt 4 x 2 G/S"
which would have been placed around September 1943, and I am loathe to ask Mr Fletcher to look up the record card but perhaps I can get round to it myself in due course. I have applied to be a volunteering job on record cards at the Tank Museum. In the meantime I wonder if "con.8" means some form of conversion? This was as just mentioned a time of flux as regards contracts, and 4 x 2 was obsolete, old Tractors were obsolete, and the huge backlog of Canadian vehicles stockpiled across the Pond was at last starting to clear. The requirement for 17-pdr tractors resulted in 4 x 4 GT rebuilds, and what was left was it seems either converted into G/S trucks or 17-pdr tractors, or at least sent to New Zealand where they were rebuilt as G/S trucks! The shipping of the 4 x 2 Ants supplied under V.4528 therefore makes a whole lot of sense.
May I ask our Aussie friends if there is any evidence that the British sold any obsolete vehicles to the Australian Government as well? I have realised that in this thread
http://www.mapleleafup.org/forums/sh...r&pagenumber=2
we discussed such matters, although the MCC Portees could either have been assigned to the AIF in North Africa and then shipped home after the campaign, or sold on ex-WD stocks as obsolete.
I was also going to ask if anyone had any evidence of the Chevrolet Portees being converted to G/S trucks as well as of course the 17-pdr Tractors, and there is the photo evidence!