Revised 1942 S/M Contracts Listing

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by David_Hayward (RIP)

1. Regarding the Australian FAT Rear-engined: note this was supposed to be a Field Artillery Chassis, and yet the official description albeit of the original model was "Rear-Engine Armoured Car" [Ford Model C011QRF...my square brackets]. I could not decide therefore after reading your reasoned and authoratitive note whether the Australians had ordered any FATs. Then I remembered that this point had already been discussed on the old forum. Because my PC crashed I lost all unsaved data. This file has been a casualty...I think we agreed before that this chassis was a Ford C291Q, # 13 Cab as per THE HISTORY OF FORD IN AUSTRALIA, P. 109, Australian design No. 8, on the F-GT chassis. So I was wrong, and will amend thje original posting. AMENDMENT HERE: but I seem to remember that it was thought that the 1942 3-ton FAT chassis for Australia was the same model, so can I correct that to C291QH please?

A "FORD ARMOURED VEHICLES Chassis Instruction Book" lists two models:
- Rear engine chassis 4x4 C291QR
- Modified G.T. Chassis 4x4 C291QH
plus views of the chassis supplied (see attachments)

Ford C291QR chassis.jpg Ford C291QH chassis.jpg

Obviously the rear engined C291QR chassis were used for the Indian Pattern Wheeled Armoured Carrier. I think it is logical to deduce that the "modified GT" C291QH chassis was used for the Indian Pattern 4x4 Armoured Truck - please refer to the attached scan from Bart Vanderveen's book Historic Military Vehicle Directory.

Ford chassis for Indian Pattern vehicles_resized.jpg

I think David Hayward would have loved to have seen this....

H.