What about this GMC?

Here is a truck close to me that I could probably buy cheap.Is this a post-war conversion or did they produce them like this for the Army? And it runs! Thanks,

Tom
That is a Chevy 1 1/2 ton firetruck. They made alot of them during WWII. Very good trucks.
Go to this site vehiclesofvictory.com
That is a great place for getting information and parts for the truck. The owner of the site is a good Joe. Tell him FrankUSMC from NC sent you.
If you get the truck, I have new white cotton fire hose in the box very cheap for the bed.
One of the few, Frank USMC RET.

Buy that fire rig and restore it! Very complete, and running, doesn't look like the rust is more than skin deep either!

That is sweet, alot were used by the USAAF. Jump on that quick!!!

Thanks for the link Frank,Could't quite ID which model she is. I am gonna think about this one, it is a little bit out of my lane but it sure is cool.The third member is shot but I could always drive her home with the front wheels Here are a couple of other pics,

That is a Chevy but I do not believe it is a WWII period contract truck.

I collect them and this conforms to nothing that was official produced.

Couple of things that indicated that. The fire trucks did not have fuel tanks under the seat, you can see this does because of the filler on the passenger back side of the cab. From the interior shot the transfer case levers look more GMC than Chevy. The pump is smaller than was spec'd. The pump mounting is bubbaized. The fire body is not military.

I would say it is a post war civilian conversion.

My restored 1943 Model 325 Fire truck is below.

Bill

Great looking truck Bill!
While my initial thought is that Bill is right, this is a "home made" fire truck, it should be noted that the military had more than one type of fire truck based on the 1 1/2 ton chassis, and I definately agree the truck found is not like Bill's.

It may be a modified CCKW (what size engine does it have, and/or what shift pattern?), or it could perhaps be one of the other styles 1 1/2 Chevy, or it could indeed be a civy conversion. The pix posted is too small for my tired eyes to see the level of detail I'd like to. There is a super-nice guy in Hawaii - Jim Davis - who has done a lot of research in WWII fire apparatus and who has a nice website devoted to same. Worth checking out. Most of my research has been into 6x6 fire trucks (surprise, surprise), but I've come across a few pix of Chevys which I'll post below. Notice, I do not own the copyright to most of these photos (which are primarily from a private collection), I have permission to post them, but please don't repost these elsewhere.

Regards,
David

One of the first military trucks I let slip away from me was a Chevy firetruck. It just did not look right, so I passed on it. Later, I found out it was a Chevy 4x4 hose truck. It was made to just to carry fire hose to reach fires that were along ways from a fire hydrent. I found the one I looked at in 1977, to this day I have not found another or seen another in any ones collection. The guy wanted $1500 for it.......time for a beer...
Also, save another flight line 1945 dated fire extenguser today, the unit was just getting ready to discarge it so they could cut it up to be put in the scrap hopper.
One of the few, Frank USMC RET.

Thanks for all the info and replies, don't know if this truck is a legit military version or not.I thought I would include a few more pics myself.It just so happens that my uncle served in an engineer fire fighting platoon in Berlin shortly after the end of WWII.Here are a couple of pictures of his truck, I have a few more if anyone is interested.

BTW Bill your 43 is a beautiful truck.

combst32 said:

Thanks for the link Frank,Could't quite ID which model she is. I am gonna think about this one, it is a little bit out of my lane but it sure is cool.The third member is shot but I could always drive her home with the front wheels Here are a couple of other pics,

Click to expand...

Looks like about a 500+GPM hale pump on the front of it.

A pair of Class 135 crash trucks form the 1991st Engineer Aviation Fire Fighting Platoon in North Africa, WWII.