AR4412 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 8:52 pm
The Army had the same 'warranty rule' as I remember it being mentioned after we picked up the Regiments' fleet of Leyland Dafs, which were replacing the old faithful Bedfords, from Moenchengladbach.
Bob Fell wrote: ↑Tue Aug 28, 2018 7:51 pm
For me, my vehicle is based on what it may have looked like in it's early service life.
I was informed by the squadron MTSS chiefy that not for a minimum of 6 months as they were not allowed to do so. This was, if memory serves me correct, something to do with warranty?
That certainly explains why later marks of Land Rover, in particular, were left un-sprayed for quite some time - in fact many Wolfs retained their original paintwork well into their service lives as did DAFs and Fodens. But this was a later era, whether the same rules applied during the days of the Lightweight - 70s and early 80s, I don't know but, there was certainly a reluctance to overspray new vehicles with black in the first few months at least. One exception was, though, my own quartermaster - the picture below is of my brand new Wolf which I had just collected from the QM in Rheindahlen and, as you can see, it has been oversprayed already!
In fact it is interesting that the Army was never quite as uniform as people tend to expect - there was a lot of variation: older DBG vehicles served alongside both unadulterated NATO green vehicles and those oversprayed with IRR green and black for quite some time and CLs retained their factory finish in many cases throughout their lives. Generally, the RAF were more particular and presented a neater and cleaner fleet, though they seem to have been the first to apply black paint onto canvas - something the Army tended to avoid, for many years at least. Nowadays, it seems to be even more anarchic with vehicles in all sorts of colours in the same unit, but far fewer with black stripey camouflage. All fascinating stuff.
- My brand new Wolf July 1999.jpg (455.79 KiB) Viewed 2354 times
As for my Lightweight, my intention was the same as Bob, to go for a look which might have applied early in its career, before it became too abused, hence the exposed galv and lack of black paint.
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