Vintage Thing No.32 - Dodge T215-WC27

While on a quest for tractor parts in Hampshire last weekend, Andrew the tractor man and I came across this fine example of World War II Dodge ambulance. It belongs to motorcycle enthusiast John Sartain and dates from 1941. Its official nomenclature is a T215-WC27 and 6422 of this type of ambulance are recorded as being supplied to the US Army and the UK under Lend-Lease. T215 is the model type and WC27 denotes the ambulance body. It has a six cylinder flat head 230.2 cubic inch engine with a 3.25 inch bore and 4.625 inch stroke. This equates to 82.55mm x 117.475mm and 3772cc. This design was essentially a stroked version of the engine in the late 1930's Dodge passenger car range and produced 92 brake horsepower at 3000 rpm and 170 ft lbs at 1200 rpm.

The idea of Lend-Lease was to pull the resources of the Allied forces without a formal engagement of United States of America in the Second World War and the US made available material valued at more than $42 billion to 44 countries. The Lend-Lease arrangements came to an end in September 1945 and were followed by the Anglo American loan whereby the British government paid for these goods supplied at a very preferential interest rate. The final deferred payment was made on 29 December 2006 when Britain's Economic Secretary Sec, Ed Balls, thanked the United States for its support.

The Dodge division of the Chrysler Corporation was the major producer of half ton 4x4 trucks for the U.S. Army but, in 1942, the half ton type was superseded by the three-quarter ton 4x4 truck, which was also produced by Dodge.

I have always been impressed by the enormous number of vehicles produced by the United States and the Commonwealth countries in support of the UK during World War II. The struggle latterly seems to have been an unequal one but in the dark days of 1941, when this machine was produced, Britain's future looked decidedly uncertain. The Axis powers were effectively subdued at last by sheer force of numbers and overwhelming industrial might.

The 1941 vintage Dodge 4x4 particularly appealed to John. Both types share the same engine but the half ton truck looks just a little bit cuter, if an army truck could ever look cute. I like the sweep of its front wings, which are cut away from the civilian pattern to prevent the buildup of mud, and the no-nonsense features of the militarised front end that made repairs on the battlefield that much easier.

I can only presume that in a back-to-back test the half ton type is slightly quicker off the mark than the three-quarter variety but straight line acceleration and fuel consumption were minor considerations when it came to winning the war.

These rugged little trucks were once described to me as being so easy to work on all you need to mend them was a hammer. However, John Sartain, who has had this example for a little over a year, found that someone had tried to adjust the wheel bearings with a chisel. The front wheel tracking was also seriously out of line. This has now all been sorted out and this Dodge is back on the road.

The tire tread pattern on this Dodge immediately took me back to my Airfix modelling kit days. From an early age, I enjoyed gathering any spare pieces of pastry from my mother's kitchen, rolling it out and then driving my army vehicles over the pastry to leave satisfying tyre tracks in it. I asked John if it was difficult to obtain this pattern of tire tread these days but he said there was no difficulty at all. Tyres like these seem to be as effective and popular as ever.

John’s ambulance came with quite a lot of history. For instance, it appeared in the film Memphis Belle and to commemorate this still carries the logo of this famous bomber.

Initially, I mistook this ambulance to be a Dodge Power wagon but John explained that the Power Wagon was the civilian name for the later three-quarter ton Dodge Weapons Carrier. These were known for a short period as Jeeps. The origin of the name Jeep has been fiercely debated over the years but is generally accepted to come from a character in the Popeye cartoons, a creature who was neither fish nor fowl but could do anything and knew the answers to most everything. Subsequently the Dodge Weapons Carrier was christened the Beep, which is believed to be a contraction of beefed up Jeep.

The prototype for both the Dodge T215 and the Dodge Power Wagon was a pre-war four-wheel-drive conversion of a Ford truck by Marmon Herrington. This was subsequently hailed as the grand daddy of the Jeep and later became known as the “Darling”. Obviously that makes me think of Blackadder Goes Forth. How these brave little trucks have permeated popular culture.