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Introduction from Queensland Australia


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Hi there!

I am located near Brisbane, Queensland Australia. Been into the green rust for way to long. I am ex Army, RAE combat engineer and tradesman. Got a variety of vehicles from the 1940's to the 1970's. I am also into Army radios of the same period. Some of the toys are:- M3 Stuart Light Tank "Hybrid", C8A Heavy Utility Wireless "HUW", FV1600 1 Tom Humber FFW, Austin Champ, M38A1 and M606A3 jeeps, Series 2 and 2A Landrovers etc. My current project during CV19 lock down is a 1954 Mk1 Ferret. I plan to post progress photos in other forum page. Here are a few of the "toys"

Enjoy! Phil...

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thanks guys for the praise!

Ok here are the details on the Humber.

I purchased it in early 1995 from the Lowther/Hampton Bush Fire Brigade west of Sydney. It had not run in years and I gave my self less than 6 months to get it done up, registered and on the "Back to the Track" run to Darwin. Also I had to get the beast up to Brisbane where I was based in the Army. Needless to say I did do the trip and covered 9000 km and consumed $3000 in petrol. (see attached photo of the beast next to a tiny termites nest at the old WW2 Snake Creek ammo depot site)

FV1601A "Commer"

Engine No. 13746

Chassis No. 6310141

ARN. 105-810

RP22.jpg

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1 minute ago, phil4280 said:

thanks guys for the praise!

Ok here are the details on the Humber.

I purchased it in early 1995 from the Lowther/Hampton Bush Fire Brigade west of Sydney. It had not run in years and I gave my self less than 6 months to get it done up, registered and on the "Back to the Track" run to Darwin. Also I had to get the beast up to Brisbane where I was based in the Army. Needless to say I did do the trip and covered 9000 km and consumed $3000 in petrol. (see attached photo of the beast next to a tiny termites nest at the old WW2 Snake Creek ammo depot site)

FV1601A "Commer"

Engine No. 13746

Chassis No. 6310141

ARN. 105-810

RP22.jpg

Its about twice the height of the truck!

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Phil thank you for the quick response.

That's interesting on the engine number, British Humber engines were mainly 4-digits but there was a batch of 20 fitted with engines in the 5-digit group 13164-13618.

Our 5-digit chassis numbers provided the basis of the registration mark, by ignoring the first number & inserting BK between the last 4 digits.

Is there anyone over there who has correlated the ARN, chassis & engine numbers for these Humber/Commers I wonder?  I have lists for all the UK ones, it would be nice to add the others.

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7 hours ago, fv1609 said:

Phil thank you for the quick response.

That's interesting on the engine number, British Humber engines were mainly 4-digits but there was a batch of 20 fitted with engines in the 5-digit group 13164-13618.

Our 5-digit chassis numbers provided the basis of the registration mark, by ignoring the first number & inserting BK between the last 4 digits.

Is there anyone over there who has correlated the ARN, chassis & engine numbers for these Humber/Commers I wonder?  I have lists for all the UK ones, it would be nice to add the others.

Hi there Clive.

Well the engine number in mine matches the body number. So it has its original engine still fitted. It is one of a batch of 153 that Australia acquired. There is some one in Victoria who can correlate chassis number to ARN  but i will need to look him up.

Phil...

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Phil thanks it would be interesting to see where they fitted in with 3700 production run for UK vehicles. Originally UK ones were designated to a "CT" (Combat) spec but certain economies were introduced downgrading them to "GS". Were the Australian ones CT or GS I wonder?

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Hi again Clive.

Following is an extract i sourced from a website and I can not recall which one, with a bit of info you may find answer a few questions for you.:-

"Australian Service Use

As noted above, 153 Humber 1 ton trucks entered Australian Army service beginning in 1955. The vehicle ID plates carried the nomenclature Commer, not Humber, and it is believed that this was due to identification of export vehicles. Humber and Commer were both part of the Rootes Group. The vehicles were always known as Humbers in Australian service. The vehicles were given Army Registration Numbers (ARNs) from 105671 to 105823. Interestingly, numbers 105671, 672 and 673, have no details of engine or chassis numbers listed in the Registration book examined by the author in Melbourne some 25 years ago. Perhaps the vehicles were the original trials vehicles, although the ones shown in some trials photos shown Commonwealth (C) registrations rather than Army registrations. The Chassis Numbers noted are all in the series beginning 6310001 with 6310150 being the highest number noted. The chassis numbers are not sequential with the registration numbers.

The original issue of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Instructions (Aust) (EMEIs) Data Summary is dated October 1958 and gives the nomenclature as Trucks 1 Ton CT, Humber, Mk1 (Census Code No. 6041). The Data Summaries for those vehicles fitted with radios are dated August 1962, and show the nomenclature as Truck, 3/4 Ton, Cargo, CT, Humber (FFR)"

Phil...

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