question dodge 57/58

[oats and barley]

i bought a command car earlier in the year but have not had much chance to look at it. it has a big radio in the back and the ceramic on the aerial base is like a flying saucer the plate on the firewall shows 19 not 29 and it has a winch can a wc58 have a winch and a 19 body number or is it just a wc57 reconnaissance with a radio. also at some stage something substantial had been mounted on the top of front passenger wing with 8 bolts just intrigued

[Gordon_M]

i bought a command car earlier in the year but have not had much chance to look at it. it has a big radio in the back and the ceramic on the aerial base is like a flying saucer the plate on the firewall shows 19 not 29 and it has a winch can a wc58 have a winch and a 19 body number or is it just a wc57 reconnaissance with a radio. also at some stage something substantial had been mounted on the top of front passenger wing with 8 bolts just intrigued

 

Not sure about the winch, seen that argued either way. they only built one batch of WC58, 2344 of them, chassis numbers for the contract ( more than one type ) starting 81529001, so if your chassis number is close to that it is possible, if it is way above that, probably not. The one sure identifier is the body plate ( on cowl under bonnet ) if it is 4219-xxxx it is a Command Car, if 4229-xxxx then it is an original radio truck.

 

The reason they didn't build more was really simple - they didn't have to. All the WC56 and 57 Command, and the WC53 Carryall trucks were 12 volts and radio equipment could just be bolted in and used, so building radio equipment in on the line was not that necessary. Late war, when the Command and Carryall were discontinued, the Weapon Carrier had been moved to 12 volt too and suppressed so they could just put radios in that when needed.