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Train / Allis Chalmers M7 Hickman, NE **Status Unknown*

• CATEGORIES: Features, Unusual • TAGS: This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

UPDATE: Was $8500. **Status Unknown**

JAAP correctly noted this was built from an Allis-Chambers M7 Snowcat platform. Here’s  a restoration of a M7 for comparison: http://www.robertsarmory.com/M7-snow-tractor.htm

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Here is your opportunity to get a great piece of American ingenuity and history. This is a one of a kind train built back in the 1950’s by hand. I do not know anything of the man that built it but believe he must have had some railroad experience or a great understanding of how a train operates on the tracks. The train is built with front suspension that allows it to turn with the tracks along with allowing it to float into the turns with the spring suspension. The rear of the train is designed with the same setup. The drivetrain is built of a war time 1944 Willys Jeep. It has the L-head 134.2 cubic inch inline 4 cylinder Go Devil Engine. Followed up with a T-84 3 speed transmission. The transmission has what looks to be a custom transmission brake on it for slowing the train. The transmission is followed up by a shortened drive shaft to a narrowed rear-end to which came from the same jeep. 
The motor spins free and everything looks to be in place as well as the transmission shifting. I have not tried to start it. Last time it was reported to be ran is when it was parked about 20 years ago. The rest of the train is built with a stout frame and a beautifully done engine cover hand formed from numerous sheets of skins to give it a period correct look of its time. The head light is from a 1941 Chevrolet car. 

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Laser Scanning the Bantam BRC-60 Frame

• CATEGORIES: Bantam-FordGP-WillysMA-EarlyJPs, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

The Austin Bantam Society shared a link to this interesting story about the use of a laser scanner by Direct Dimensions, INC, to scan what they describe as the Bantam BRC frame, but is really a BRC-60 frame according to Bill Spear. I’d read that the frame broke after heavy testing, but I don’t see any obvious breaks. I didn’t know it had been saved. It definitely has decayed.

http://www.laserdesign.com/project_news/200/

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Bantam BRC original prototype frame

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Jeep Wreck by Barry

• CATEGORIES: Features, Models This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

Blaine discovered a thread at SCALE MOTORCARS about a guy named Barry who builds scale car wreck dioramas. Included in the different dioramas is a pretty neat scale model of a jeep graveyard. Barry built it based on photographs of an actual location. The setting and condition of the jeeps look a lot like the photo I shared earlier this month from Price of Wales, Papau New Guinea.

Click here and scroll to the bottom of that page to see all the photos

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Diving for Jeeps in the South Pacific

• CATEGORIES: Features, Last Ride This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

UPDATE: I first published this in 2009. I thought it was worth an update, so I’ve added some better photos.

Note: Some of these photos are posted online as being at the Coolidge wreck when they are really from the nearby Million Dollar Point dump. I believe I have the photos under the correct locations, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

1) Wreck of the SS President Coolidge. Built in 1931 as a luxury liner, the SS President Coolidge was drafted into WWII service and painted gray. While navigating the islands of the Republic of Vanuatu in the Pacific during the war, the Coolidge hit a cluster of recently deployed American mines. The ship listed to the right as more than 5,000 troops were forced to abandon it, leaving behind guns, helmet, jeeps, tanks, rations, medical supplies — all of which sank with the ship in 70-to-240 feet of water about 100 yards from shore.

This jeep is entombed in hold #2 at a depth of 110 feet:

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The Yacht Lorelei Blog features these photos from 2012:

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2) Million Dollar Point is another area in the Republic of Vanuatu where jeeps and other equipment was dumped. Located just off the coast of Espirito Santo Island, the area is full of “jeeps, six-wheel drive trucks, bulldozers, semi-trailers, fork lifts, tractors, bound sheets of corrugated iron, unopened boxes of clothing, and cases of Coca-Cola….” dumped by American troops as a way of disposing of the items. Learn more here. Below are two photos of jeeps:

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The Yacht Lorelei Blog shared these two jeep photos from Million Dollar Point:

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