Posted by Gordon on Friday, October 01, 2004 at 5:09AM :
In Reply to: I have VC-5 8642635 if your keeping a count posted by Howard in Newcastle on Thursday, September 30, 2004 at 5:50PM :
Hello Howard,
Nope, I haven't got round to keeping count of them yet. I do know that there are more survivors than you would expect from such a small production run, given that the chassis were so easy to break, and that most of the survivors are VC1 or VC5, but few VC5 trucks have survived with the open cabs as so many farmers dropped on civilian cabs. In fact I only know of one completely original VC5 and that's the Krause one.
It is only a guess based on survival rates of other vehicle types, but a rule of thumb is that 2% to 5% or WW2 period vehicles seem to survive pretty much intact, which would suggest 90 to 230 remaining VC trucks.
The numbers of military VC trucks surviving outside the continental US can almost be counted on one hand (a VC1 in Moscow, my VC 3 and VC1 chassis in Scotland, Jaap in Belgium has two VC1s, and there is a VC1 with a later Carryall body on it in Holland too )
The only other area they got to was Australia, presumably as limited-standard war aid disposed of mid war, but although David Robinson in Oz has one or more images of them at the Holden plant in Sydney during WW2 there are no known survivors there.
Gordon
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