1974 Dodge D200 5/4 ton

[rob love]

A friend bought one of the surplus Dodge Ambulances. Extremely heavy duty truck with, I believe, a Dana 60 and Dana 70 axles. The regular force 5/4 tons always suffered from the light duty Dana 44 front axle, which was more suitable for a Jeep.

[Jason Ginn]

Vincent Tinguley posted these excellent pics on FB of the Dodge Ambulance in Cam!

[maple_leaf_eh]

It is possible Jason's truck is just an ordinary pickup used on base, by the Air Force or CE. Not necessarily green cam in the old days, but brushed on by Bubba long after leaving the service.

[rob love]

Generally a truck at an airforce base would have been the high visibility yellow with the low glare flat black hood. If it was a base truck, normally it would have been Lincoln commercial green. I worked on a lot of base vehicles back in the early 80s and they pretty much all followed this pattern.

I also saw where the militia would get issued a commercial truck as an administrative vehicle, and eventually out would come the paintbrush and cam paint. Certainly not authorized, but in those days of the soft skinned army ( and certainly true of the militia) somehow commercial vehicles became tactical.

[Jason Ginn]

A couple more "White Knights" the b&w shot is Vernon 1980 and the second is from a car listing.

[Robin Craig]

There was one of these Dodge truck floating around CFB Uplands by the maintenance folks and I only ever got a couple of shots of it, will have to find them. It was an oddity to me as it was gloss white with the DND crest on the doors and that van body on the back, it didn't know what it was.

I did ask some people about them but no one see to care.

A great find Jason.

[charlie fitton]

[QUOTE=rob love;229999].....Certainly not authorized, but in those days of the soft skinned army ( and certainly true of the militia)......


Au Contrare Rob... We had orders from on high to cam everything, and were given about a week to do it.

Here's a mimeographed drawing, a bit of chalk, brushes and paint..get at it.

We even had a rubbery white to cover the flat black in the winter. Blew off on the highway like a great big balloon. That wasn't done twice.

[Jason Ginn]

That is outstanding Ed! Thank you so much!


I love hearing the memories of these trucks it seems sometimes the most basic this stick with us as memorable!

I hope to be able to save the old beast it looks pretty good all this gs considered.

Chis, the motor is a 318 2 barrel. No wonder they were hard on gas!

The interior is very much hunter green with OD floors and kick panes roof etc. The seat is part paisley embossed but the base is ton. It seems I can get NOS replacements from the M880 US dodges but they are only avail in black. Possibly a dye job could correct them. Otherwise the commerial repro examples don't have the paisley pattern.

I ran the vin through a dodge website and interestingly it identified the trim line on the truck as "Royal Sportsman"!

[rob love]

[QUOTE=charlie fitton;230078]

Originally Posted by rob love

.....Certainly not authorized, but in those days of the soft skinned army ( and certainly true of the militia)......


Au Contrare Rob... We had orders from on high to cam everything, and were given about a week to do it.

Here's a mimeographed drawing, a bit of chalk, brushes and paint..get at it.

We even had a rubbery white to cover the flat black in the winter. Blew off on the highway like a great big balloon. That wasn't done twice.

I remember that white stuff. You couldn't keep it on, then when you tried to remove the rest you couldn't get it off. So you painted over it again.

I agree that orders were given to cam the field vehicles, but when the brushes started going over the panel van or the white crew cab, they were going too far. s well, I am speaking of the late 70s/early to mid 80s when some of these transgressions occurred.

[chris vickery]

Cummings re-power?
If interested in this as an option, keep an eye out for an early 12v with a 5 speed transmission. The early Cummins were all mechanical so really simple to do an engine swap.