I was station in Cali in the late 80s and early 90 when there was alot of huppla over fast attack vehicals. I remember seeing a 151 that soup up along with several rail jobs at camp pendelton and hunter ligget was this an A3 and was it ever deployed?
The FAVs (Fast Attack Vehicle) that I saw while stationed at Ft. Lewis were basically rail dune buggies made by Chenowith. Not sure what the M designation was.
The FAV you speak of was just a field modification of an M151A2. It was not delivered from the factory and does not have its own M number. Some may have been purchased from Encore or such but they were not M series vehicles.
The one Papa has a photo of is not the ones they had at Ft. Lewis. The Chenowith FAV looks like a sand rail with 2 front seats and a gunner that stands behind them in the middle (I know that picture is kind of configured that way but these looked like, well, a sand rail). They had rear mounted engines just like a VW dune buggy.
The mutt FAV's came before the sand rail dune buggys. The buggys were used more for spotters and recon. The mutt FAV was more modifications by special operations groups. The thread is about the mutt FAV like papabear's photo not the sand rail style.
Troy's FAV (favviking on SS) was closely inspected by a couple of folks who used them in Grenada and other places. They gave him some additional information about equipment carried etc and he added that.
Can provide some closeup pics if anyone wants to see em
The mutt FAV's came before the sand rail dune buggys. The buggys were used more for spotters and recon. The mutt FAV was more modifications by special operations groups. The thread is about the mutt FAV like papabear's photo not the sand rail style.
The original poster asked about "sand rail" FAVs so I believe my post was in line with it. Plus I don't recall requirements that every thread stay "on topic" specific to that thread. Let the mods decide what's appropriate and what's not.
Southdave
The jeeps you are talking about, we called them "super jeeps". The ones the Marines had were all just hand built by the Marines, no billion dallar contract to make them, just Marines.
The ones I saw, all had lead pipe for the roll bars, again, no billion dallar contract. The ones again I saw had stuff like the dash mount machine gun, the mount was made by cutting the top off a jeep machine gun mount and welding it to a steel plate, then bolting it to the dash. Every one of them had the guns mounted were the crew wanted them.
They were very cool looking, and save the tax payers alot of $$$$$$
One of the few, Frank USMC RET
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Frank-This was right before or during dersert storm, look like somthing off "rat patol" I thought they had a different engine in them ? and some mods to suspendsion. I didn't know if it was part of contract mod. just some jarhead beer induced mod. lol which it seem to be. remembered the would flat out move in comparison to standard A2. I saw them at 3 differnt places in a three year time period maybe altogether 20-to 30
M-151a3??
