Inside the Chieftain's Hatch: Scout Car, M3A1

the genesis of what would become known as the white scout car was 1935 at Aberdeen where a scout car at t9 was being put through its paces basically a Corbett one and a half ton truck chassis powered by a lycoming 8 cylinder engine cranked out about 94 horsepower half-inch armor on the front quarter inch on the side did about 50 miles an hour they're very happy with it it entered production as the Scout car M 222 of these vehicles were built and then they said about trying to improve it the m2a1 as it was known was very similar what they did was they added a skate ring for three machine guns and they changed had the engine to a Hercules six cylinder in-line a hundred of them were built they we designated it as the Scout car m3 now a hundred sounds like a lot for the 1930s cash-strapped US Army and indeed it was but it was a mere blip compared to the production one of its successor now the m3a1 was further improved primarily by looking at the body that were eliminated the rear doors they widened the body to be flush with the rear wheel so you don't have that shelf anymore and they lowered the skate mount a little bit I've been asked to come down to the Rock Island auction company to have this m3a1 here that they'll be flogging at their September premier auction in 2018 if you're watching this is a bit later on you missed it and well sure let's have a look and see what they've got the manual describes the vehicle as being based off of a specially designed chassis commercial type of four-wheel drive truck it is surmounted by a special armored body which is mounted onto a double drop type channel section frame ooh I've not certainly no idea what it means but it's in the manual so I'm telling you the armor is a quarter inch everywhere with the exception of the windshield visors and they are a half inch if you looked at the front you can see that the radiator is armored with open above shutters they're controlled by the observation commander ie the bloke on the right seat to the front you'll see the standard anti ditching ruler it's a little bit heavy it wasn't too unusual to find especially in foreign service that it was removed and they just went with a simple bumper unlike the very very similar half-tracks which you can see almost the development family resemblance the Scout cars didn't seem to come with a winch option standard service lights behind the bush guard marker lights as well your blackout light interesting little feature down here this little hole behind that is a lifting flap that's your hand crank if you have to hand crank the engine for whatever reason either for maintenance purposes let's say you're doing a compression test or yeah just for some reason your starter motor steady at the hand started the engine reasonably enough is under the hood and it's easy enough to access although you can only open one side at a time that said if you got two people you open them both at the same time then you can wrest the hood louvers against each other the engine itself is incredibly simple I mean suck squeeze bang blow distributor a fuel pump Cobra I even I can maintain it and the manual is very explicit as to how to do so as well if you're not so mechanically inclined now the engine is an inline 6-cylinder 320 cubic inches 110 horsepower 241 foot-pounds of torque 6 quarts of oil go into it up at the front left here now the manual does reference to other engines a Hercules diesel and a Buddha diesel they really only got into a trial stage 100 of the vehicles were built and well then they decided didn't work they converted them back to gasoline or petrol for the rest of us cooling system nothing particularly fancy there it's up front radiator 1940 coolant don't forget to open up the louvers if nobody shooting at you - you know aid with the cooling fuel system well it was a mechanical one when it was built like this one you wouldn't find it unusual to see a electric fuel pumps being installed after the fact by restorers or collectors the wheels well they are not exactly lightweight the tires alone with the heavy duty tube flap and bead lock that's 145 pounds you then mount them onto 20 inch split rims these rims by the way split means if you're not familiar with them treat them with utmost respect if you have to work on the things they can literally be lethal standard tire pressure 45 at the front for the combat tire 60 at the back and yes I know it says 65 but hey I'm reading for the manual the earliest vehicles came with a standard use tire and it was only 40 psi the wheels welder mounted onto a very simple front axle leaf springs not much else to say they're coming around to the back of the vehicle because frankly that's not very much around aside as I mentioned they got rid of the door in the back this meant you can now festoon the back of the vehicle with camera nets pioneer tools or in this case also tripods for the two machine guns now don't read too much into the fact that this particular vehicle is shown mounting to caliber 50s the issue equipment was one caliber 15 one caliber 30 it looked and received the tow pintle mount there and rather neatly integrated into the rear bumper are your taillights and again just imagine how many years this particular taillight design has been in service I mean this is a 1939 1940 vehicle and yeah you'll see this forever just quickly coming around to the side you can have a look at the other side of the engine as you can see there's a lot of room to work on it you'll also note that there are cloth seals or canvas seals and you want to be a little bit careful as you're lowering the hood that you don't scrape and rip the things this now brings us to the windshields as I say it's a half inch for the metal and the glass blocks are not particularly bulletproof ergo you have the metal visors now in order to get these things down you first have to remove the glass blocks that's done from inside you then can lift these off to support struts and fold of them this is not something that is done on the spur of the moment unfortunately moving further back on the running boards you're going to see on the right-hand side of the battery box there are three screws or bolts example you lift off the lid and it can access your system now the manual states that is supposed to be a battery on each side but I've never seen it's always a pioneer tools on the far side and thus it is here a little bit further back you can see on the observation commander's door the drop down armor very symbol goes up there's a little shooter that you used to lock the thing in place bring it back down use this thing as well I don't know what yeah I call it a shooter it's drop down plunger call it what you will there is of course this little metal visor as well that you can use so you can see out when your armor is up speaking of behind the armored door you're going to see the Philip port for one of the fuel tanks there are two 15 gallon tanks in the vehicle one on each side with a selectable draw so make sure you don't run out of fuel because you got to manually transfer of one fuel tank to the other they are protected from underneath by steel plating well I have the door open I'll just take advantage for a quick of demonstrating the operation of the radiator louvers there are four positions selectable by this large lever on the right hand side all the way open and all the way closed getting into this vehicle is a lot easier than a lot of the vehicles that I tend to review and let's see push down on handle open door already have to worry about is the statement the Tyrell mount they call us right now man I have a wonderful view to see where I'm going well okay it's not really the soft top of course we'll come to here so I my height will be driving like this and I have indeed done so in the past I do note that they have padding on the inside of the skate mount as well however once I mean I mean other than the fact that I'm half blinded by the armor and the skate ring it's a comfortable alright once you're in this amulet it's a car basically large car or small truck it's other than the fact that you're sitting on the two fuel tanks nice big steering wheels what you would expect indeed the manual states that the vehicle is steered by use of the standard type steering mechanism actually I'm not really sure what else they were using back then in the late 30s were a tiller maybe it's bet the only thing I can think of for a wheeled vehicle and while you have your standard array of the clutch brake and accelerator with your 4-speed transmission reverse being all the way right and back windshield has mentioned you dismounted them by use of these wing nuts pull them both down then you can lower the visor I have always liked and you'll see this on half track as well this particular style of gage I guess multifunction gage its I don't know it's a little bit of class to the vehicle I think as you're driving along with your caliber 50 so I probably also adds class now think about it the headlights which assistant redid the one that was originally in the vehicle as it was first produced this is a bit later modification the original ones had a sort of an in-and-out with various stops depending how far you pull drivers have brought your lights were in this one you've got four sections to go to blackout marker you don't need to do anything but to do anything beyond that let's say you wanted to go to full service drive you have to push this release button it stops here accidentally knocking in this you're driving off-road at night sneaking up on somebody accidentally hit over your knee or something and now look you've just illuminated yourself in the world after all the controls gadgets and gizmos the levers on the right it's actually fairly simple compared to a lot of vehicles have been it your transmission is a four-speed with reverse as a helpful panel here on the dash just in case you forget what lever does what in which position handbrake well this is in the off position you crank it back for on your transfer case is currently and low you put it forward into neutral and then forward again into high now it is possible to go straight from low to high will on the move but the manual recommends that ya stop first the vehicle will mechanically top out of fifty five and a half miles an hour although the maximum allowable speed was forty-five in Reverse top speed was ten that's in high range in low range forwards you'll top out at about thirty this is of course a scout car and it's not very much point in doing any scouting if you haven't told anybody what it is that you have scouted as a result behind the driver or observation commander you could place if you wished a radio such as this one the alternative would be additional munitions but really the radio is more important the standard layout for the rear of one of these cars was six seats and they would be mounted to outboard at the rear corners to out just behind the driver and observation commander and the last two will be mounted in the middle facing to the rear now in this particular vehicle we have a spare tire mounted which sort of intrude on to where the fixed seat would be for the six men so instead they just have some dismountable cushions it's kind of interesting they've actually built a specific foot well for these guys in the middle as mentioned the standard weapons fit is one caliber 31 caliber 50 but standard and in the field don't necessarily see eye to eye thoughts it wouldn't be unusual to find multiple machine guns force tuned around one of these things ammunition well there's actually not a lot of space for it these boxes in here look nice and capacious but bear in mind they are substantially covered by the wheel arches the skate mount is easy enough to use there's a large handle here you lift up it releases the brake and if it was free rolling might have to hit this with a hammer or something you can slide it around the vehicle there is also a tent corrector so for the part of the skate mount which is a little bit of an angle by the drivers you just use this crank here and it'll level out the machine gun if that happens to affect your aim any other's fun the big was never quite as good as the half-track which followed it but still 20,000 894 them were built of that laughs about eleven thousand four hundred percent as lend-lease to friendly foreign nations and they would continue to see service around the world for many years afterwards in common with a lot of American World War two vehicles these days a common source for collectors is actually Greece it was kept in service surprisingly long and a lot of modifications remain as well so if you do get one of these ex Greek ones just see what you need to do to backdate it if you got one who has the automatic transmission that might be a little bit more work though now I am occasionally asked do I personally the chieftain owned an armored vehicle and the answer is of course not I live in San Francisco I can't afford one and even if I could where the devil would I park it however where I to get started on buying armored vehicles this is actually pretty much where I would start because as I said even I can maintain it it's pretty simple it looks the part this is a sort of thing you can have a lot of fun commuting in traffic in or just taking it down to Hot August Nights and showing it off at your local show so if anybody does feel generous enough to happen to want it donate me a military vehicle to biggie but in tint I think it's a great starter vehicle together with ferrets and a few other ones but if you want iconic American armor this is a very good start so it'll be interesting to see what this particular vehicle goes for it the option I'll be sure to come back and edit the description in a few weeks and let you know what the sales price was anyway that was the tour of the m3a1 Scout car as ever hope you found it interesting and informative I'll see underneath in your miss wonder if it's worth driving head up as opposed to down like this but I think I'm a Dodge Viper once I had to do that it certainly with the Alfa Romeo that's that convertible off Romeo I had to drive like this it was absolutely insane anyway so note the marker light now I can look forward I think crank it is just a hand crank I'll be damned Max is out at 55 and a half miles an hour and in low range well you're really close to doing 225 now I just made that up 30

Channel: The_Chieftain

Views: 158,892

Rating: 4.9740314 out of 5

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Id: w08rtY5dz7M

Length: 17min 16sec (1036 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 22 2018