Garth,

Thanks for the response. I need to clarify what I meant. My comment
was meant to indicate my disagreement over the time period of this
photo with some of the other members of the historical society. I know
it was a shipment of Fords - I strongly suspect this was not during
the war but instead shows an overseas shipment of autos in the years
after the war. In any event, would make a neat string of cars to
model.

I do find it odd war production materiel -- Willys or Ford Jeeps or
otherwise -- would be shipped in a crate marked "Ford" whereas the
vast majority of war materiel I've seen being loaded onto ships was
devoid of the manufacturer's name or logo. I have a similiar photo
showing a shipment of aircraft engines being loaded into a boxcar at
the P&W factory and the crates have some stencilling on them, but not
a "company" logo or even name.


Marty McGuirk

Marty, you are correct. The War Department prohibited commercial markings on Government equipment. This went so far as to cause the factories to alter the stamping dies so that commercial logos did noy appear on truck hoods, grilles, or tailgates.

KL

This may have been true on the EXTERIOR of vehicles, etc... but recently I visited the USS Bowfin
and EMD and GE logos were all over the engine room and other model nameplates clearly had
manufacturer names and logos displayed.
Charlie Vlk

Actually, at least early production Ford GPW's ("Jeeps") had the Ford script stamped into the rear body panel much like a pick-up truck until (I think) mid 1943, (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fordjeeplogo.JPG ) and a quick web search turned up this page http://www.olive-drab.com/od_mvg_jeeps_overseas_shipping.php showing a similar crate with a smaller Ford script stamped on it, so I guess it would be at least plausible that these are Ford Jeeps crated for oversees shipment.

Bill Schneider
Ford Enthusiast with many hours working on a '44 GPW (without script fenders)

Mid-43 was about the time that the Ordnance Department took over
vehicle procurement from the Quartermaster Corps. The QMC was much
more tolerant of that than OCO-D. (QMC era parts manuals were
essentially civilian manuals with new covers while the Ord era manuals
were definitely G.I.)

War Department packaging, however, was pretty non-descript overall from
what I've seen. A brandname marking would be better classified
as "possible", rather than "plausible", in my opinion. In any case I
think the HRPOE photos referenced in other messages show pre-43 packing
and shipping and would be good guides for modeling.

Regarding nameplates, yes they would have the manufacturer's name and
perhaps even logo on them. However, remember that the Navy Department
was not the War Department, so virtually nothing was common between the
two! Even the War Dept. (Army) was splintered, with Army Air Forces
using different procurement practices from the Army Service Forces and
the six supply services within ASF having their own procedures as
well. It's surprising anything got done.

KL


--- In STMFC@..., "Bill Schneider" <branchline@...> wrote:

Actually, at least early production Ford GPW's ("Jeeps") had the Ford

script stamped into the rear body panel much like a pick-up truck until
(I think) mid 1943,