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Volkswagens used by the British Army


keithvipond

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The British Army also assembled roughly 250 KUBELWAGENS from left over components at the remains of the Factory after the war. I had an old Friend who owned one of these. Confirmation was sourced from the VW factory records, which they still have! I also owned a 44 Kubel myself for a few years. I nice vehicle to drive, simple to maintain & relativley easy to keep going with spares sourcing. I have always been interested in VW of the Kubel, schwimmer & Beetle classes. I have coincidently, just obtained an EX Postwar Factory Tech Report on a componant failure on one of the Postwar Army Kubels. Very indepth & with a x ray type photograph! All original. It menations a Capt. Pearson at the factory in one of the Nomencleture boxes. I am ASSUMING that Capt. Pearson was involved on the R.E.M.E Side of things there. Doe's anyone have any info on this Person, or could point me in the direction of where I might begin to research him/ (Apart from the obvious REME Museum at Arborfield!)

Thanks Guys!

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Is that photo of the t2 at the REME workshops Camp David

 

 

This was taken in the "Alamo" which was the RCT vehicle lines, Jubilee Camp, inside the UNPA. The REME wkps were just down the road. When were you there? I was in 7 Sqn RCT.

 

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.164056,33.274176&spn=0.00421,0.007553&t=h&z=17

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LOOK OUT!! Youre cargo is escaping!:-D

 

:D Looks like we needed a few more ratchet straps for that one!!

 

We did used to have some fun with the new guys..we would get someone zipped up into a body bag and then get the unsuspecting victim to lift the "body" out the back which would then burst out of the body bag!! Good harmless fun:nut:

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This was taken in the "Alamo" which was the RCT vehicle lines, Jubilee Camp, inside the UNPA. The REME wkps were just down the road. When were you there? I was in 7 Sqn RCT.

 

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.164056,33.274176&spn=0.00421,0.007553&t=h&z=17

 

 

I was there in 1990 attached to 22 ad regt ,had some fun times up on the un lines we was based at B32 the box factory

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The British Army also assembled roughly 250 KUBELWAGENS from left over components at the remains of the Factory after the war. I had an old Friend who owned one of these. Confirmation was sourced from the VW factory records, which they still have! I also owned a 44 Kubel myself for a few years. I nice vehicle to drive, simple to maintain & relativley easy to keep going with spares sourcing. I have always been interested in VW of the Kubel, schwimmer & Beetle classes. I have coincidently, just obtained an EX Postwar Factory Tech Report on a componant failure on one of the Postwar Army Kubels. Very indepth & with a x ray type photograph! All original. It menations a Capt. Pearson at the factory in one of the Nomencleture boxes. I am ASSUMING that Capt. Pearson was involved on the R.E.M.E Side of things there. Doe's anyone have any info on this Person, or could point me in the direction of where I might begin to research him/ (Apart from the obvious REME Museum at Arborfield!)

Thanks Guys!

 

As an ex-beetle owner I do not a few things.

The car was origibally a Porsche, but renamed the "Peoples CAr" by Adolf Hitler.

After the war the plan was to donate the factory and the car design to the British motor industry and ship it all to thwe UK.

No British car company wanted it as they descided "The car dose not meet the requirements and is unattractive in the eyes of the majority and nobody will buy one". They got that wrong,Mind you they would probably made it unreliable and killed it off just as sales were increasing :-D

The fCTORY WAS THEN RUN BY a Major Hirst (IIRC) to produce behicles gor the British Army. This probably explains all the vehicles they built from biys.

The factory was eventially handed back to civilian running for production of the Type 1.

Ferdinand Porsche continued to utilise the Type 1 parts in his cars. Some having the same engines and chassis/floor pan even.

 

Mike

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The Resourcefull Major Hirst was tasked with getting the factory up & running originaly as a REME Repair Workshops for the area. He then set to with agreement from 'higher authorities' to see if it was feasable to attempt to get some sort of production going in constructing vehicles from left over componants Etc. There were a lot of people living in the area who used to work in the factory during hosilities. Gathering together a lot of this former workforce & gleaning thier knowlege & skills. Benifited both parties, it provided employment for the locals. & produced vehicles to supplement the Army's vehicle fleet for more practical purposes. Light cars were better & more comfortable for officers & liason duties than a Jeep! Also more economical to run with lower fuel consumption. A lot of Beetles were supplied to the British Control Commisions as well. these were used for quite a few years! Also, Kubelwagens were made for the same reasons. & also Kubels with BOX BODIES on the rear were manufactured for the the German Postal Service. & one or two for factory 'Runabouts', delivering spares, tools Etc around the factory buildings. There was a 'Type Number' for these. But without looking it up in one of the books on VW's, I cannot recall it's type no.

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I know that Rev Martin Atkinson, an Army chaplin used this car and he was responsible for bringing it into the UK in 1962. I have anecdotal evidence that he used to cross check point charlie and even assisted people to cross the border by hiding them in the car.

 

It is 25bhp and has a full crash gearbox and cable brakes. All thats missing are the Army markings. Unfortunately the commission plate was missing when I purchased the car. I can put more restoration photos on later.

 

Keith,

 

That is an excellent restauration!

 

Re. Army markings, see the links in my earlier posting and below for some examples. It seems there was variation depending on the period and unit using them.

 

Source: TheSamba.com - pics wanted CCG and U.S. army staff cars !:

434596.jpg

 

 

Source: TForce - picture taken around 1947:

5167050308_8ff69d7e7c_z.jpg

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These pictures bring back a few memories. In 1961, my father was posted to 113 Coy, RASC as their CSM. When quarters were arranged, my mother and I joined him, and my new school was Windsor Boys School at Hamm, a couple of hours or so away. My father hadn't a car of his own, so one of the units Beetles was pressed into service to transport me to myfirst term at boarding school.

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These pictures bring back a few memories. In 1961, my father was posted to 113 Coy, RASC as their CSM. When quarters were arranged, my mother and I joined him, and my new school was Windsor Boys School at Hamm, a couple of hours or so away. My father hadn't a car of his own, so one of the units Beetles was pressed into service to transport me to myfirst term at boarding school.

I was stationed at windsor boys school, that is before it became a school, it used to be 5 Armd Workshops, REME when I was there. It closed in 1958 to become a school, when we moved down into Hamm (Cromwell Barracks) I was demobbed Dec 1958. Happy days..... at least for me.:kissoncheek:

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Here's a late friend of mine next to one, taken in the 1950's in berlin.

 

[ATTACH]40351[/ATTACH]

 

Note the vehicle hangers in the background. Those members who have served in Germany will remember no doubt. That there were very similar hangers in most of the Barracks they were stationed at? A Great Deal of these original Wartime vehilcle hangers survived, & were untilised by postwar armies when they moved into these former Whermacht Camps. A LOT are still being used on a daily basis. Testimony to the well designed & 'Forward Thinking' German Military of the Time!

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Note the vehicle hangers in the background. Those members who have served in Germany will remember no doubt. That there were very similar hangers in most of the Barracks they were stationed at? A Great Deal of these original Wartime vehilcle hangers survived, & were untilised by postwar armies when they moved into these former Whermacht Camps. A LOT are still being used on a daily basis. Testimony to the well designed & 'Forward Thinking' German Military of the Time!

When I arrived in Hamm, Westphalia, May 1956, I was amazed by the quality of workmanship in both workshop hangers and living quarters. I had just completed my training in England in cold drafty wooden spiders. We had central heating (installed in the 1930s) rifle racks build into the walls, showers and toilet facilities that you would expect to find in a good hotel of the period.

I left Germany very impressed by their attention to detail. :kissoncheek:

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. . . quality of workmanship . . . attention to detail. . .

 

The Germans are world-renowed for their "Gründlichkeit" (thoroughness), and it showed in the VW Beetle. The very early post-war Beetles were not very good, having been cobbled together from left-over stocks and whatever could be scrounged to get production up and running. They had a need to keep the people in Wolfsburg at work and occupied, so peace and order could be established.

 

When things were properly organised and mass production came up to speed in the late 1940s/early 1950s, the VW Beetle was among the best-finished cars available anywhere in the world, which was a big part of it's commercial succes. Even today the 1950s Beetles are regarded to be of the highest quality of all the decades the Beetle was in production.

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The car was originally a Porsche, but renamed the "People's Car" by Adolf Hitler.

Mike

 

While I understand what is meant, it's slightly misleading, the Beetle was designed by Mr. Porsche, it was never a Porsche, though early Porsche (the brand did not emerge till the fifties) where based on the Beetle.

 

If I may quote from Wikipedia,

 

"Starting in 1931, Ferdinand Porsche and Zündapp developed the Porsche Type 12, or "Auto für Jedermann" (car for everybody). Porsche already preferred the flat-4 cylinder engine, and selected a swing axle rear suspension (invented by Edmund Rumpler), while Zündapp used a water-cooled 5-cylinder radial engine. In 1932, three prototypes were running. All of those cars were lost during the war, the last in a bombing raid in Stuttgart in 1945.

 

The Zündapp prototypes were followed by the Porsche Type 32, designed in 1933 for NSU Motorenwerke AG, another motorcycle company. The Type 32 was similar in design to the Type 12, but had a flat-4 engine. NSU's exit from car manufacturing resulted in the Type 32 being abandoned at the prototype stage.

 

In 1933, Adolf Hitler gave the order to Ferdinand Porsche to develop a Volkswagen (literally, "people's car" in German). The epithet Volks- literally, "people's-" was also applied to other Nazi sponsored consumer goods such as the Volksempfänger ("people's radio"). Hitler required a basic vehicle capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/h (62 mph). The "People's Car" would be available to citizens of the Third Reich through a savings scheme, or Sparkarte (savings booklet), at 990 Reichsmark, about the price of a small motorcycle (an average income being around 32RM a week).[9]

 

Erwin Komenda, Porsche's chief designer, was responsible for the design and style of the car. But production only became worthwhile when finance was backed by the Third Reich. War started before large-scale production of the Volkswagen started, and manufacturing shifted to producing military vehicles. Production of civilian VW automobiles did not start until post-war occupation."

 

I'm not making a political point, but just consider that starting from the same situation and after the same time, West Germany had the VW Golf and East German had the Trabant...

 

jch

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What was Windsor Boys School is alas no more. The whole site has been flattened and redeveloped and part of it is now a fire station. Quite the best school I ever attended.

 

Up to the mid seventies when i left the school the part of the camp behind the gymnasium was a reservist fire depot with several trucks and other vehicles (some of WW2 period) i can remember entering the buildins and removing literally armfulls of german helmets which were painted flouresent yellow with WW2 stamps on the liners.

 

These were conficated by the staff and eventually sold to raise monies for Oxfam for a disaster in some forign country (so we were told) i can also remember having folders of files relating to local land issues of the same period.

 

happy days

 

Ashley

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