Hello everyone!
First off, let me welcome you to the Blog. I am relatively new to blogging, but not to the internet, nor reading blogs. I love to write, and I am excited about sharing my crazy passion for odd vehicles, more specifically my newest acquisition, a 1965 M109A3. In case you are wondering "what the hell is a M109A3?", allow me to elucidate you to the answer.
It is a giant, old army truck. A "light shop van", according to the military, who think "heavy" only counts for artillery and tanks. For some light reading, here is what our friends at Wikipedia have to say about it:
So, how does one go about purchasing something like an M109A3 you might ask yourself? Good question. The answer is, Government Liquidation. I started my dream of extreme off road vehicles some number of years ago, initially in love (still am really) with old Volvo Swedish military communications trucks from the 70s, specifically the Volvo C303. Beautiful van, but when I started trying to picture how I was going to cram my entire family (or my camping crew, The Gentlemen of the Expedition) I couldn't see how we were all going to fit.
It was on my most recent trip to Death Valley that the answer was provided to me. I was out with my Dad, and our friends Ed and Dan at the Racetrack Playa when we came across this amazingly cool old German military communications truck, fully kitted out as an overlander. We had a brief chance to speak with the owners, a totally cool pair of Germans who were travelling around the world in their vehicle. They had already been through Siberia, Europe, and had just shown up in the US recently (at the time). Their truck was beautiful. Here is a picture of their beauty. It was a Mercedes-Benz LA 911B.
So, I hunted around on the web for a while trying to find one once I got to civilization. It ends up, they are extremely hard to find, and most of them are in Europe. On top of that, the parts are going to be extremely scarce, and generally it was going to be a several year long search. Dismayed, I started to hunt around for other options. That's when I stumbled upon this guy:
I read through the whole thing, and decided this was it. I would buy an old U.S. Army truck, just like he did, and use that as the basis for my vehicle. Better yet, this amazing Canadian had already basically documented the steps I would need to do. So, taking his conversion as a template, I forged ahead.
Found the truck on Government Liquidation, currently living on Nellis Airforce Base. I posted my bid, and crossed my fingers. The gods were with me, and I won the bid without going into the poor house too considerably. The next bit was waiting for my Government background check to clear (took about five weeks), which spanned the holidays. My paperwork came back, and much to everyone's surprise, I was not indeed a terrorist. You can imagine my relief.
Next was getting the damn thing off the base. Being that I hadn't every actually seen the thing yet (yeah - I know, that was a little crazy too) and have never driven a vehicle of, shall we say, this caliber, I was a little hesitant to simply take a one way flight there and try to drive the thing back in the middle of winter. So, that being the case, I got a tip from some of the cool peeps at Steel Soldiers to try Hamner Towing, a towing and shipping company in Corona California that has been known to haul around large old military vehicles. After arranging with them, they did the pickup from the base, loaded the truck, and drove it out to Santa Cruz in two days.
A giant semi pulled down my residential street bearing my new vehicle, and a love was born. I still remember the first time I crawled into the cab and started her up, slowly backing her up and then pulling into my not-quite-large-enough driveway. I was terrified and exalted at the same time!
Introductions aside, welcome to the blog, and get ready to read about my progress through getting the thing restored and working. It's going to become the Family RV/Zombie Apocalypse Survival Vehicle, and it's going to be a fun ride, in every sense of the word!
Well done. Cant wait for more updates and pictures.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, looking forward to more, exalted one! thanks for linkishness!
ReplyDeleteHey wow -- you're more crazy than I knew -- cool!
ReplyDeleteThats no moon.... Awesome yar it works
ReplyDeleteAwesome as your first post was, I kept thinking to myself while reading it, "cool, but WHY?" So I was very satisfied to read the "zombie apocalypse" explanation and rest knowing Yarry had not yet gone entirely loopy-doopy.
ReplyDeleteBut then other doubts creep in. I must remember that you've gone, in your quest for old unusual vehicles, from the Nash Metropolitan, to the original Mini, to. . . the deuce-and-a-half?! Ok, you were perhaps poorer in your early years driving those tiny, tiny little cars. But if money were the explanation, then I must assume you spent years cramming yourself into 1960'd subcompacts, all the while dreaming of a gargantuan ex-military truck. That paints you as a sad, frustrated, little man that I just can't believe you were.
So, what then? Compensation? As highly as I esteem Cricket, I think even she would have left you if there were really a 13,000lb vehicle's worth of compensating to do. I mean, if the Hummer is the hallmark of the one-inch penis, this presents some nightmare scenarios best left more to medical literature than polite conversation.
I guess I may just have to accept that you ARE nuts. But I still want a ride in your truck.
--john