US-built Ford 1942-model trucks in Allied service

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by Tony Smith
The Australian Army had a "Two Engine" policy which saw most vehicles fitted with the Chev 216 6cyl or Ford 239 V8

A similar thing happened in North Africa too. In an effort to keep the inventory list down, Kuno Stockelbach (a civilian employee of Ford Canada, supervising all vehicle assembly and major overhaul facilities for the British Army in North Africa and the Middle East) put Canadian 95-hp Ford V8 engines in anything(!) that had room under the hood.
Engines did not last long in the North African desert; Universal Carrier engines were changed every 2,000-3,000 miles and transport vehicles after 10,000 miles. So even if the US-built Ford shown at the top of this thread was originally delivered with a 6-cylinder enigne, in North Africa it would have been retrofitted with a Canadian V8 the first time it came up for an overhaul.

H.