HELP all info about the Fox Armoured car

[paul visser]

Hi,
I am restoring my Fox armoured car for over 12 years now and still looking for Original photo's and information about the production. All general information is known but i am looking for details like:

- there are 1506 foxes build, but does that include also the GM 8446 chassis that are shipt to Australia??

- How many GM 8446 chassis are send to Australia?

- Which Canadian units definitely used the Fox in europe? (training britain)

- any listings, data or info about the use at Camp Borden (mine was used there)

- The build-up of the serial number is a bit strange to me 2/8446/16009 so conform the manual 16009 should be the production number. cant be correct if ther are only 1506 made??

All photograps are welcom, they are rare to find, besite the comon ones.

My fox is DND: 53-595 CF62283 and chassis Nr: 2844616009


all help is welcom, thank's

regards,
Paul

[Brian Gough]

Paul,

from the maintenance manual re the Chassis Serial Number:

"..... The first five digits of the group represent the year the vehicle was built and the Factory series number. The last five represent the number of the vehicle in order of manufacture, beginning at 00001, for the model year."

So the 16009 in your serial number indicates your Fox was the 16009th vehicle produced in the 1942 model year.

Brian

[paul visser]

Yes i know Brian but only 1506 were made

[Les Fisher]

Brian is correct some the 16009 vehicles produced would 15 cwt’s some are Otters, some are Fox and 60cwt and so on.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by paul visser

- there are 1506 foxes build, but does that include also the GM 8446 chassis that are shipt to Australia??
- How many GM 8446 chassis are send to Australia?

Paul,

A total of 382 GM 8446 chassis were exported to Australia for their Rhino Heavy Armoured Car project. Ref. A Fox street sweeper: "A quick look through Mike Cecil's excellent book suggests that 251 Model 8446 chassis were delivered to Australia. Not included were 131 chassis shipped aboard the SS Port Montreal which was sunk by enemy action enroute to Australia."

Originally Posted by Brian Gough

from the maintenance manual re the Chassis Serial Number:
"..... The first five digits of the group represent the year the vehicle was built and the Factory series number. The last five represent the number of the vehicle in order of manufacture, beginning at 00001, for the model year."
So the 16009 in your serial number indicates your Fox was the 16009th vehicle produced in the 1942 model year.

Thanks Brian. So, we would need to find the batches of serial numbers allocated to Fox chassis.

Indeed, 8446 was the GM of Canada model numbers for the Fox and Rhino chassis - ref. Ford model designation.

Known Fox chassis numbers found here on MLU include:

• 2844600001 > delivered to Australia
• 2844600027 > delivered to Australia
• 2844600064 to -77 > delivered to Australia
• 2844600923 > info from Bruce
• 2844601635 > Bruce, Canada
• 2844608911 > Ontario, Canada (ref. http://www.canadian-register.co.uk/database.html)
• 2844609293 > Roger Condron, USA
• 2844616009 > Paul, Holland
• 3844617385 > James, UK

Known contract numbers are listed in fox info needed.

Far from complete, but it's a start!

PS: back in 2000, I wrote the following web page on the Car, Armoured, Mark I, Fox I.

HTH,
Hanno

[paul visser]

thank's Hanno, good info. now it makes more sence to me. The street sweeper form John Belfield is gone, i got most of the part i was missing from him last year, he was very helpfull.

[dcrfan]

I just purchased a CD of photos of Ebay from an RAMC soldier in Malaya 1948-49. It included a number of pictures of GM Fox armoured cars used by the HQ of a British Army Field artillery bty (25 lbrs). A real find as I have previously only seen two very blurry photos of Fox in Malaya including one being used as a pillbox on a train.

photos (167) by tankienz, on Flickr

photos (168) by tankienz, on Flickr

photos (173) by tankienz, on Flickr

I think there is a total of 10 in this vehicle park picture.

photos (151) by tankienz, on Flickr

Edit Sorry one more photo of Fox in Malaya

photos (136) by tankienz, on Flickr

[paul visser]

Whow those are great. Thanks for sharing.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by dcrfan

I just purchased a CD of photos of Ebay from an RAMC soldier in Malaya 1948-49. It included a number of pictures of GM Fox armoured cars used by the HQ of a British Army Field artillery bty (25 lbrs). A real find as I have previously only seen two very blurry photos of Fox in Malaya including one being used as a pillbox on a train.

Hello Paul,

Indeed a very interesting find and thanks for sharing them here. I have responded to one of the pictures in the more appropriate thread Indian Pattern FAT.

Do you have any idea which artillery battalion this was?

Thanks,
Hanno