WW1 Peerless Truck

We have a 1917 dated British Army Peerless truck to restore and wanting to do something to make it stand out thought that we should restore it as was in service during the Palestinian campaign. The query is what colour were they painted at this stage. Looking at photos of them in Palestine they seem to be much lighter than the greeny brown used in Europe, but can anybody confirm exactly what colour would be correct.

We wont be looking to start the restoration for a little while as we have two other projects to finish off first, but i do like to plan ahead.

Incidentally, if anybody has any spare Peerless parts that they might want to sell or swap, do please let me know.

Sorry to piggy-back on your thread ...but!!

I am seeking plans/designs/ good photos (all angles!) of WW1 Peerless trucks to help me scratchbuild a 4mm/ft model of one in plasticard. I need plans by 16th April (this year, 2011!)

The aim is to have a model of the China Clay Museum's Peerless as it was in Parkyn and Peters' days but there is no time for me to get to Cornwall with a tape measure and notebook

Thanks in advance!

Buff

Do you have any photos of the Cornish Peerless?

The China Clay Museum is otherwise known as the Wheal Martyn Museum. Apparently volunteers can help, "restore and operate the 1910 (sic) Peerless lorry". Quite an incentive!

http://www.wheal-martyn.com/vol.html

I understand they had a new lady who was head of the museum colelction. One of the first things she did was throw out lots of Peerless parts. How daft. I have a pile of photos of thier Peerless, but i just cant find them. how annoying is that. I have found a couple though:

I will see if i can find the others.

Here are some pictures of two other Peerless which might help a little:

In my routing around i also found these which might help:

I will see if i can dig out some measurements later on to.

We have a 1917 dated British Army Peerless truck to restore and wanting to do something to make it stand out thought that we should restore it as was in service during the Palestinian campaign. The query is what colour were they painted at this stage. Looking at photos of them in Palestine they seem to be much lighter than the greeny brown used in Europe, but can anybody confirm exactly what colour would be correct.

 

 

I'm three years into the restoration of a 1917 Model T, which is intended to be a replica of the vehicles used by the Australian Light Car Patrols, in that area. I have the same problem as you, in that I too have to guess at the colour used in the area of operations. I've been delaying making that decision, waiting for some form of inspiration - which hasn't arrived yet.

Needless to say, I've found no colour photos to give me any idea of the paint used for these desert vehicles but there is an artist's depiction (water colour) of one in use by the 16th Irish Div - not sure how that formation came to be in the desert. Could the artist have been Irish ?

The colour shown is reasonable for the time and place, so I'll be going with that darker yellow style, when I give my T the final coat. I'd imagine that your truck might have been painted in the same livery ?

The 16th Irish Division only served on the Western Front in WW1. The title of Patrol Car is slightly inaccurate - those type of Ford's, as well as being used as patrol cars, were widely used as general light trucks, the IWM has at least one image I came across showing one in Albert and there's several others showing them on the Western Front on various ebay sales etc

The 16th Irish Division only served on the Western Front in WW1. The title of Patrol Car is slightly inaccurate - those type of Ford's, as well as being used as patrol cars, were widely used as general light trucks, the IWM has at least one image I came across showing one in Albert and there's several others showing them on the Western Front on various ebay sales etc

Thanks for that confirmation - I had not heard of the 16th Irish in Palestine.

Curious then that the Ford would be in what appears to be a desert type colour. As far as I can see, the artist seems to have represented everything else correctly.

Jack

Hi there folks,

Recently joined and had a picture of a WW1 truck with my Grandfather (far left) (ASC) in it. Thought it was a Dennis but other members pointed out it was probably a Peerless so I decided to post it again in this thread. Hope you enjoy and any other info on it would be appreciated for family research.

Cheers

Colin

:thumbsup:

Yes, a lovely clear picture of a Peerless! Notice the "Peerless" Makers plate on the front cross member!

The query is what colour were they painted at this stage. Looking at photos of them in Palestine they seem to be much lighter than the greeny brown used in Europe, but can anybody confirm exactly what colour would be correct.

 

I've now found several references to vehicles being repainted at various periods on the Western Front and in each case the colour is described as either 'standard' or more usually 'Regulation' colour. I guess you just need to order some tins of 'Regulation'. I appreciate that won't help with desert markings but I suspect any repainted for the desert might also have been 'Regulation'. My gut feeling is that there is no actual colour. It was just paint and when it was ordered it was supplied in whatever shade happened to come out of the mix at that particular time.

I'll just throw in here the reference to the usual method of desert camo painting that I've heard referred to time and again, basically paint it any colour you want, and throw buckets of sand at the wet paint.

I've heard that this was quite common in WW2, where sometimes the paint provided contrasted with the local desert colour. Normally glass was painted over too, with just wiper sweeps left clear.

No sure how well it would work in the south of England though.

Gordon

Hi there folks,

 

Recently joined and had a picture of a WW1 truck with my Grandfather (far left) (ASC) in it. Thought it was a Dennis but other members pointed out it was probably a Peerless so I decided to post it again in this thread. Hope you enjoy and any other info on it would be appreciated for family research.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]53973[/ATTACH]

 

:thumbsup:

:-D Hello there, nice picture, I will show my Father when he's here next, he rebuilt the Clay museums Peerless any ideas where it was taken?

A fine looking truck. I cant wait to get stuck in to ours. Well maybe in another 10 years time.

Tim

Colin,

What a lovely picture. Research on other similar photographs indicate that they were taken at Hounslow and show trainee drivers. The rear side of the lorry (out of view in your photo) would bear the inscription "DRIVERS INSTRUCTION A.S.C. M.T."

The lorries appear to have been registered in the civilian 'MC' registration series issued in Middlesex. One of the known pictures is of MC9146; looking closely, yours almost certainly shows the next along, MC9147.

Thanks for the info

:thumbsup:

Sorry if this resurrection of the thread is a little late... I've an album of my grandfathers photographs from WW1 which features Peerless trucks quite heavily. He was a driver with 346 MT Coy ASC in Salonika, Northern Greece. This little sideshow ( Only 6 UK divisions involved !! ) was in support of "Poor Little Serbia", invaded by the Bulgarians....

I have more if they are of interest ? ...several featuring vehicles in ditches, so that may not have been the only bottle of White Horse involved... :-)

I have more if they are of interest ? ...several featuring vehicles in ditches, so that may not have been the only bottle of White Horse involved... :-)

Yes please - post them for us to see!

Great image of the Peerless, particularly the "Army" Mark on the dash or fire wall. Given the smaller involvement of the Allies in this Theatre of Operations there are not a lot of images of MT in circulation so if you have more it would be good to see them. As an aside, the Australian Divisional Supply Column supporting the British 17th Division took new Peerless to France. The Military Planners had decided to send a British Infantry Division including the 14th DSC to Salonika late in 1915. Soon after arriving in France the Australian Unit were ordered to exchange their new Australian Peerless (44 in number) for well worn Dennis from the 14th DSC. Today's trivia item!! Rod

A great picture that. Interesting to see both the late and early pattern radiators. The late one of course is probably a replacement for the early ones which kept cracking.

Tim

Further to Tim's remarks regarding the radiators, the large demand for trucks in 1915 brought about importations of standard American ' off the shelf ' trucks, most had brass cased radiators and honeycomb or similar cores. With the rigors of WW1 rough terrain these were prone to leaking so much more sturdy designs using cast iron top and bottom tanks and tube cores were adopted. Makes including F.W.D., Locomobile, Peerless and Jeffery-Quad were amongst those that underwent change.

Richard Peskett.

Can i add this from another thread.....

Photo's now identified as Peerless trucks and they are in Palestine during WW1

PEERLESS truck with the British Army during World War One.

The original Library of Congress LARGE MB ( to see those finer details ) file can be found via the Flickr link with each photo.

First image is in Palestine, transporting German POW's.

Close up

Close up

Second image is also in Palestine, near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.

DesertBlooms88

May i also add this ... ref Ford Model T in Palestine. circa 1920

hi

Here are three photo's which will be of interest to Model T enthusiasts.

They are from the Library of Congress website. The first one which is at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem is pretty good resolution.

All photo's have the Library of Congress link so you can view and download the original LARGE MB file.

Thankyou for taking the time to look .

Any information is welcome.

DesertBlooms88

That's a basic vehicle, early hotrods?

Nice photo's.

Nice picture of the webbing kit as well.