B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

Since I haven't been involved with WWII forums or a member on RCU & other tank forums for too long, I haven't really seen or researched nearly as many WWII pictures as most members might have looked over throughout the years.

So I was browsing a smaller website gallery I stumbled on while doing some research, which had some really nice photos (here), & I thought one photo was a very interesting scout / reconnaissance vehicle that I have not seen talked about before. Though I'm sure someone here probably has come across it prior to this, maybe even many times, & if that is the case I apologize for my severe lack of WWII vehicular knowledge , but I really didn't believe this particular car was used that often since there doesn't seem to be many photos around that I could find.


When I first saw it, I immediately pictured these Germans in my head, cruising around in this early to mid 1930's styled American hot rod coupe like Chevy & Ford were making at the time .... though this isn't one of those, I believe I eventually nailed down what make, model, & year it was, from doing a little more searching & comparing.

It was supposedly used during the Battle of the Bulge, & since it was a new one & different than the typical German scout / recon vehicles I've seen posted & discussed before, I decided to post it anyway to see if others could accurately identify it so I could test my own theory & conclusions from my couple hours research on it.
I could not find other pictures of this particular car being used by the Germans after searching for those couple hours, so I stopped looking for more, but for me it is one recon vehicle used by the Germans that had a definite " COOL " factor!
The original is the darker image, while the second photo was lightened to enhance some fine detail a little more.




So anyone else like this one too, give me a thumbs up?
And who will be the first to create one for a 1/16th battlefield?!?!


~ Craig ~

FreakyDude

neccisity is the mother of invention, cool find. Just goes to show that on the battlefield anything can be put too use.

Airbrushler

back then many cars looked aike even as the ones today looked alike
been trying to find what this car is but haven't found one that has the same side hood louvers yet, this is a 1936 Nash

Rex Ross

~~~~~~~~~

Send that photo to these guys........someone will ID it for sure..........http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/

B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

How true, so many with similar style, yet all with their own little twists to make them inherently unique.

Close, but no cigars on the Nash though, too many features are off the mark.
It's not an American model though, it is definitely a European make, but I believe you certainly got the right year with 1936 though as far as I know with what I've found out after researching the original photo!

Awww, don't do that Rex, that's cheating! lol , I figure with all the WWII aficionados cruising this forum, I'm sure someone here can ID it without any outside help ...
Besides, I'm just about 100% certain (at least 99.999% positive anyway ) that I know the correct vehicle used in the photo, just wanted to see if anyone else here has seen the picture before & knew what it was too before comparing / revealing my own findings.

~ Craig ~

B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

Yeah, I'm thinking this certainly wasn't the typical recon vehicle assigned to them, & it was circumstance & a need that brought about this unusual pairing.
If the original owner was even around or alive at the time, I'll bet they weren't too happy about it when it was "aquired" for this military use though ...

~ Craig ~

bubbajoexx

Peugeot 301 D Coupe 1936 this is the car you see in the pic here is a link http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...pe_1936_01.jpg

Airbrushler

that looks like the one Bubbajoe good find

B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

Bingo bubbajoexx, that's exactly what my findings came out to as well when I was trying to figure out what it was after I first came across the picture, the 1936 Peugeot 301D Coupé, though I had used a black 301D I had found to compare for similarities.






~ Craig ~

ausf

They even popped out the door lock.

Grab the Dunkelgelb boys, we're going to the front!

Yes, paint the chrome too. Musta been Earl Schreib.

Pah co chu puk

Wow!

Logic tells me that we could paint up ANY 1930's car in 1/16 scale and claim that the Heer stole it for their own use. Great find.

Rex Ross

Send that photo to these guys........someone will ID it for sure..........http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/
[/quote]

Awww, don't do that Rex, that's cheating! lol [img][/img], I figure with all the WWII aficionados cruising this forum, I'm sure someone here can ID it without any outside help ... [img][/img]
Besides, I'm just about 100% certain (at least 99.999% positive anyway [img][/img]) that I know the correct vehicle used in the photo, just wanted to see if anyone else here has seen the picture before & knew what it was too before comparing / revealing my own findings.

~ Craig ~
[/quote]

~~~~~~~

My apologies........My Bad !!!!
Rex Wrong

Rex Ross

I gotta ask,,,,,,,,, Does anyone know what cars had a front and rear bumper with a dip in the middle like that? Last week I saw an obviously restored car with bumpers like that in Vallejo. I couldn't get close enough to see any names or logos/escutcheons. It kinda reminded me of my grandfathers 1938 Plymouth.

Rex

B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

If you are referring to just American cars during the 30's which might have had the dips in the bumpers, one example would be the Ford 36' coupes having both their bumpers with the slight dip in the middle, like this unrestored one & the next beauty following the link below the picture:


1936 Ford Coupe


~ Craig ~

Rex Ross

I gotta say,,,,,,,,,I think you are right, bumpers and grille look very close.

bubbajoexx

almost all 1930's cars had the dip as it was the only way to get the manual hand crank into the front of the engine to start them when the battery was dead

Airbrushler

but while they were too busy looking at what they were looking at we pull up and capture them in this....lol

B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

While your reasoning sounds plausible for why center dips might be the norm on 1930's cars, when using Google & doing an image search for the big auto makers, with broad searches like "1930 Ford", "1931 Ford", "1932 Ford", same for Chevy etc, throughout the entire decade, you will see mostly fairly straight bumpers in the vast majority of the images of the autos that come up in the searches. The center dip bumpers on those searches for me have statistically shown up a lot less frequently than the straighter bumpers (one piece or over/under split straight), & really showing very few (except for the 1933-36 Fords, where I did see dipped centers more often), which quickly places a doubt in my mind as to center dip bumpers being on almost all 1930's cars, especially in the US.

So I'm not sure I would agree with that assessment, as there are just so many examples of autos throughout the 30's without any center downward dips in their front bumpers.

Reasons to me look either like most the bumpers were so low that any hand crank would probably have gone right above them anyway with a long enough shaft, or more likely, the bumpers were far enough out front & where the bumper placement didn't interfere with a shortened hand crank like in this picture below:




~ Craig ~

MAUS45

Here is another Car the "Chain Dogs" liked to use...Simca 5.

bubbajoexx

the pic you have posted s a 29 model a but 33 to 36 the cars only used emergency hand cranks and if you look hard you will see the hole in the grill for the crank is where the dip is

B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

I'm not arguing against a point that some 1930's model cars had a center dip bumpers to accomodate the hand crank access, I always agreed that some models did, but you stated "almost all 1930 cars" had the center dip in the bumper, & that's where I start to disagree with your statement. There is overwhelming pictorial evidence of so many 1930's cars that still have the crank access, yet had basically straight bumpers without any center dips in them to accomodate the manual crank handle, & probably more with straight bumpers than those with the dip in my opinion.

That picture I provided was just the first example I came across of a hand crank, so I posted it. Don't focus on the year of the car, look at the shortness of the crank, if the cranks are that short for other 1930's cars too, they wouldn't need the center dip in the bumper to use the hand crank because you have enough room between the bumper & the hand crank to turn the engine over without needing a center dip in the bumper to accomodate the crank handle.

I know the holes are there through the grills for the crank, I see them on a lot of the various 1930's model cars, but if you do a search, please look at all the vast number of other 1930's auto images with basically straight, no center dip bumpers, & you can also still see the crank hole in the grills of many of them. So either the crank goes above the straight bumper & has a very long handle to extend out over & beyond the front of the bumper, or the crank handle is short enough so the straight bumper wouldn't interfere anyway. Either way, it kind of refutes that almost all 1930's cars had center dip bumpers, when there are so many cars which just didn't throughout the 30's.

You didn't like the 1929 example, well here is a photo of a guy going to start a 1932 Chevy, notice the straight bumper & the hand crank he is holding. The same year model Chevy in the color photo shows the same straight bumper with the hand crank hole in the lower center portion of the grill.




~ Craig ~

* Note that you specifically list in your last post "1933-1936", but remember your earlier just simply said almost all 1930 cars & not just 33-36, & though Ford seemed to like the center dip bumpers between 33-36, the opposite still goes for '33, '34, '35, & '36 Chevy's, as straight bumpers without dips were prevalent, as well as most cars in the other years of that decade.

bubbajoexx

better look again buick dodge chrysler desoto auburn olds graham page durant cord just to name a few all had diped bumpers and caddy and lesalle had holes in the bumpers with a cover plate as well as pontiac to access the crank hole on some cars it may have been cosmetic but on others it was nessesary

B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

Look, if your original point had said that almost all car manufacturers, at some point during the 1930's, had made cars with dipped bumpers, I already said I would have agreed with that in my previous post. But that's not how your original statement read, & this last post is unclear to me in what you are truly implying, as I can read this a couple ways. Either you are saying all those manufacturers had made cars with dipped bumpers, or all the cars made by those manufacturers during that time only had dipped bumpers. The first is true, the second is clearly wrong.

So again, I'm not disagreeing the point that any or all those manufacturers, at some point during the 1930's, did make some cars with dipped bumpers, it's obvious they had, but you originally stated "almost all 1930's cars had the dip as it was the only way to get the manual hand crank into the front of the engine to start them when the battery was dead" ... making it seem as if there were basically no cars with crank access holes during the 1930's which had straight bumpers! That was a blanket statement, not narrowing it down to just certain years or makes/models within the 1930's decade, & at the same time you claim that a dipped bumper was the only way to get the manual hand crank into the engine. But that in itself is just completely incorrect, because plenty of straight bumper cars were around from 1930 through 1936 while hand cranks could still be used on the same cars that had those straight bumpers, which proves the center dip bumper wasn't the only way. Of course you know this because you even mentioned a couple, Cadillac & LeSalle.

I even provided a few more logical ways to get a hand crank to the engine for a 1930's era car. One way was with a shorter crank that could be used between a straight bumper & the car, the other way was that the straight bumper just wasn't in the way of the crank handle at all anyway because it was lower than the crank access hole, or the model used a straight 2-piece split bumper where the crank could slide between. So at times the long crank just went over or through the straight bumpers, & as you even alluded to, other times it actually went right through a hole in the solid bumper ... but the bumper was still straight, & therefore not dipped in the center to provide acces to the crank hole for those 1930 - 1936 cars.

I also didn't argue whether the crank hole was a neccessity or it was just cosmetic for some cars, so why you even bring up the Caddy or Lesalle, both makes which mostly had straight bumpers during the early-mid 30's, are just more examples which support the fact that all cars didn't have dipped bumpers during that period & many had straight bumpers, which was the original point I was making, that all cars with crank hole access in the 1930's did not have dipped bumpers, & the majority of all the various cars being made in the 1930's did not have dipped bumpers.

But your latest post above goes beyond just saying almost all, to all had dipped bumpers for those makes in the 1930's you mentioned. Again, it's hard to discern what you are actually trying to say by the way you phrase your statement. I already know & had previously agreed many manufacturers, at some point during the 1930's, had produced cars with dipped bumpers, & it wasn't a reason why I was debating your original point.

To be 100% clear, all I'm saying is that all the cars produced by those manufacturers did not "all have dipped bumpers" during the 1930's for every model of car they had produced, but if you believe they did, then maybe you should go look again at all the Google images & research some of those makes. It's true that in some years & some models during the 30's the dipped bumpers were more prevalent for those manufacturers, but not during all years of the 30's & not with all the makes you mentioned. I can easily post many of those makes within the early to mid 1930's when the hand crank was still definitely being implemented, where models of their cars did not have dipped bumpers at all, so all certainly is incorrect by any stretch of the means. Here are just a few of your listed makes which you just mentioned that put out straight bumpers during the crank years.

1932 Buick 8 original advertisement


1933 Buick Series 50 Sedan


1933 Buick Series 50 Convertible


1934 Buick Series 90


1936 Buick 8 advertisement (most likely didn't have the crank access at all by this time, but still a 30's car)

1930 DODGE BROTHERS EIGHT, DC



1936 DODGE, D-2


1933 Olds 8


1934 Oldsmobile F.34


1935 Oldsmobile F.35


All these models fit within that 1930-1936 time period, all had straight bumpers, & all are produced by makers in your list.
There are so many more examples out there during those years too, I'm sticking with my original assessments.


~ Craig ~

B.A.D.A.S.S.Force

Hey Airbrushler, you might have been on to something with that picture you posted ... I just wanted to know what happened to them after that photo was taken, & what they were looking at through those binoculars .... maybe this video will tell the whole story behind those devious German Spahtruppen & their camo hot rod recon vehicle!

Be forewarned, the graphic content of this video may be too disturbing & violent, viewer discretion is advised !!!

German Recon Hot Rod Video



~ Craig ~

(EDIT 2/14/2013 @11:26pm : Video has been updated for viewer enhancements!!! )

Airbrushler

OMG!