Topic: American cars in use overseas

[Bill Murray]

I am not even sure if I am allowed to post in this area yet as I just joined today and have not solved any puzzles yet.

Be that as it may, since 1956 I have been collecting material on US cars sold, manufactured or assembled outside the US.  Parallel to that and my current interest since the mid 1960s is the subject of wheeled military vehicles used by any country 1935-1945 with an emphasis on civilian vehicles captured, impressed or confiscated by the various warring powers.

I will post a few examples here, if it is allowed, and I ask the membership if this topic is of any interest to you.  These are not puzzle photos mind you, but just interesting stuff you do not normally see on this type of Forum.

Please let me know.

OK, did not work well.  This is my 1965 Cadillac Brougham in front of the house I lived in in Sweden 1974-1976.  Bought it for a song during the first oil crisis, Volvo paid to have it shipped to Sweden and I sold it to the then President of the Cadillac Car Club of Sweden when I moved to Peru in 1976.

I will keep trying to improve my posting of photos skills on this Forum

[Bill Murray]

OK, trying again with the photos

[pnegyesi]

Hi
Welcome to AutoPuzzles. Grab a drink, and ejoy your stay. Check our puzzles and don't hesitate to chime in.

Your research topic is very, very interesting.
Well, I can help you with American cars in Hungary.
E.g. in 2000 I was part of a team who created a leaflet describing the history of Ford in Hungary and also Hungarians at Ford. If you are interested I can send you a copy.
Do you have photos on the MAVAG-Ford which was assembled in Hungary? And here's a Marmon bodied in Hungary
I have photos, data and stories on American cars in Hungary, including Chevrolet cars which were used by party leaders in the 1950s (you see it is a myth that Hungarian communists used Soviet cars)

And did you visit the National Archives in Maryland? They have hundreds of photos showing American cars assembled, sold and manufactured outside the US of A. Please see two examples: GM assembly in Warsaw, Poland and a Studebaker in Prague, CZ

[Bill Murray]

Hi PN:

Thanks for the kind remarks, the photos and the links, all helpful.

If you have the mentioned booklet on your computer, I would like to see it.
Email address is mostoysinc@aol.com.

I am aware of Mavag-Ford and I am posting a few photos here of 1937 models that all seem to have a coachbuilt taxi style body.  I also have some photos of 1939 Ford trucks taken in by the Hungarian Army with Hungarian cabs and bodies and a few of the same truck with Marmon-Herrington 4X4 drive conversion.

I have accessed the National Archives online but mainly for military type photos and I will certainly do some new searches based on your information.

I am committed to take my Wife and live-in Sister in Law to Sunday breakfast so I will have to stop for now.  Let us keep up the exchange, I do have interesting stuff I think you and hopefully the gang would be interested in.

[pnegyesi]

Bill
Thanks for the photos, two of these came from Béla Kirschner, grandson of Samu Haltenberger who led the Budapest Taxi Company before the war. Samu was a very important person in the history of Hungarian motoring.

Regarding the National Archives. There's nothing available online. You have to visit them personally - but you will be huuuugely rewarded. There are statistics on exports to various countries, local assembly reports and upstairs photos, hundreds of photos.
You see the Department of Commerce made reports by countries and even collected photos by countries.

I can provide you some guidance, because researching at the Archives can be a bit tricky. But I found a lot of useful info there.

[Bill Murray]

Hi Paul:

Thank you for the information on the Budapest Taxi Company. Another thing to research

I must be incorrect on the name of the Archives I am using or I may have stumbled across a subset of that organization.  I have over 2,500 sites bookmarked and it gets confusing some times.

In the meantime, here are a few more that you may not have seen before, Lilpop assembled GM vehicles.

Cheers
Bill

[Ultra]

Sweet thread!

[pnegyesi]

Here's an excerpt from the Automotive Foreign Trade Manual Vol I which is available in the National Archives (and if my memory serves me well, some issues can be found at the Benson Ford Research Center as well)

The country is China, the month is December, 1936. I quote the January-December, 1936 figures for American vehicles
Registrations of new motor vehicles.
Passenger cars
Chrysler: 7
Dodge: 22
Plymouth: 48
Buick: 25
Cadillac: 2
Chevrolet: 23
LaSalle: 3
Oldsmobile: 10
Pontiac: 4
Ford: 42
Lincoln: 2
Auburn: 2
Graham: 1
Hudson: 1
Lafayette: 4
Nash: 2
Packard: 9
Reo: 1
Studebaker: 7
Willys: 4

Trucks and buses
Dodge: 7
Fargo: 4
Chevrolet: 29
GMC: 6
Ford: 25
Brockway: 1
Diamond T: 14
Federal: 10
Indiana: 3
International: 3
Reo: 8
Stewart: 3
Studebaker: 2
Terraplane: 1
Willys: 1

Similar level of data is available for about 80 countries for the years 1935-1939

You can find a lot of pre-1935 data as well, but it is not so systematically organised

[pnegyesi]

From the coolest Hungarian picture archive, Fortepan, here's a picture from the 1960s taken in Budapest

[Bill Murray]

Hi Paul:

Thanks for the data table, absolutely fascinating.  I do have bound year issues of Svensk MotorTidning from about 1938-1944 that show statistics for that country and a couple of other odds and sods from other magazines but no such official US export statistics.  Somehow I shall have to see how I can access those files.

Cool shot of the Chrysler.  Amazing where American cars show up.  In my case, 99% of my photos are pre 1945 but I did save the odd one or two that were of interest and will post them here eventually.

In the meantime, here is a small assortment of somewhat unusual cars for the group.

Edit:  I see from SAH that you are called Pal, not Paul, I will remember.
First photo is a Dutch firm that specialized in sunroofs.
Second photo shows several American cars at a diplomatic meeting in Italy.
Third is a Belgian body on a Chevrolet chassis.

[Bill Murray]

Here are a few more.
A 1937 Ford from somewhere in Scandinavia
A 1939 Ford with Belgian body
A Ford "Ute" either British or Australian

[Bill Murray]

Time for a few more.
This may be a little bit scratchy as I went through cataract removal surgery today
and my eye sight is not exactly what it should be.

[Bill Murray]

And a few more before bedtime.............

[Bill Murray]

A few more odds and sods

[woodinsight]

Excellent Bill - very interesting!
Hope you recover from your cataract operation quickly.

[Bill Murray]

Thanks for the nice words.  The eye is fine today and in a few weeks
I will have the other one done.

I will do some Fords this time.  Please let me know if trucks and busses
are of interest, about 50% of my photos cover those areas and
50% are passenger cars.

[Bill Murray]

Another batch.

[Bill Murray]

Last grouping for today.

[Otto Puzzell]

Wilhelm Karmann GmbH assembled 280 CKD (Completely Knocked-Down) AMC Javelins (tagged 79-K) between 1968 and 1970 that were marketed in Europe

[Otto Puzzell]

This 1938 Buick Cabriolet by Letourneur & Marchand was featured in a puzzle by João

http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/index.php?topic=18364.0

[Bill Murray]

Test

[Bill Murray]

Hi all:

Sorry for the delay, I had two attempts that failed because I used the wrong format
and I lost the whole post.  Then after removing the offending photo, it threw out the
new post as apparently I had already tried to post the remaining photos.

For this time, some lower volume GM products.  Please note the word "beute" in German
means "booty" or captured/confiscated/requisitioned.  The vehicles may be in use in Europe,
The Middle East, South America or Asia, I often did not caption the photo as to the exact
location.

[pnegyesi]

Do you know the nice and quite informative site on Estonian automobile history? Two pictures from their archives, a Buick and an Auburn

[Bill Murray]

Hi Pal:

Thank you for posting the two excellent photos. I had not seen them before.

The primary Estonian site I use is EESTI ANTIKOUDE GALERI.  It is a bit complicated
to navigate, but has literally thousands of photos of vehicles not only from the US
but also Europe, from the earliest days to at least the 1970s from what I have looked at.

I also have bookmarked a few sites on Latvian and Lithuanian vehicle history, both civilian
and military. The Baltic countries automotive history sites are quite a "gold mine" of materiel
relating to US and European cars/trucks/busses not even to talk of military vehicles.

I also have bookmarked a number of similar sites for the Nordic countries, including Iceland, as well as South America.


Where I am lacking is Africa, all of it, the Middle East/Near East, Asia outside of Japan and the Balkan countries.

Any thoughts you may have on those areas would be most welcome.

In the meantime, just a couple of oddballs.

[pnegyesi]

Hi Pal:

Thank you for posting the two excellent photos. I had not seen them before.

The primary Estonian site I use is EESTI ANTIKOUDE GALERI. 

Yes, I took these photos from that site - glad you know it.

As for Asia, Africa - I would really, really recommend a visit to the National Archives. You will not be disappointed - to the contrary. Expect to spend about two weeks in order to do a very proper research.