Tav-V JAMMA Combines Plane Portability, Hybrid Powertrain

The Tac-V JAMMA V-22 is the only armor-ready, four occupant, hybrid, high performance off-road vehicle in the world that can fit inside a V-22 Osprey VTOL airplane. Also, it looks badass. More »

Dongfeng V07 Mianbaoche Is Ready To Attack Orchestra Practice

Dongfeng, makers of the awesome Crazy Soldier Hummer Clone, brought this militarized version of their minivan to Shanghai this week. Is there a Chinese version of the A-Team? More »

Ass-Kickin' Engine Of The Day: Chrysler A57 Multi-Bank

Is there any piston engine that could possibly inspire as much awe as the ICBM-haulin' GMC Twin Six? What if we said we'd found a 5-bank, 30-cylinder Chrysler for you? Yes, five banks! More »

Davis 494X, For When A Jeep Has One Too Many Wheels

Do you think that four wheels are just too many for your bare-bones military vehicle? Well then, Mr. Secretary of Defense, may we interest you in contracting Davis Motorcar Company to build you this, the 494X? Unlike more conventional military vehicles, the 494X utilized Davis' existing three-wheel chassis. Sadly, this seems to be a one-off prototype, but could you imagine if it wasn't? More »

Junkman's Porsche Jagdwagen-O-Rama!

Apparently unsatisfied with the rarity of his Honda Coupe 9, Junkman also keeps a pair of Porsche 597 Jagdwagens. With only 71 made, Porsche's off-road military machine is a rare site indeed. Make the jump for Junkman's description. More »

Ghost-Riding The Whip, Iraq Edition

It's got to be tough living in the middle of a war zone, in a strange country, under constant stress. So it's understandable when troops blow off a little steam by being goofy. For example, ghost-riding Humvees and MRAP's. Yep, the craze that started with a yellow short bus and later saw bored suburban kids crashing cars into all manner of whatnot has reached the sands of Iraq. We briefly considered ghost riding the MRAP when we did the ride along, but we decided that climbing up and down the ladder would have overtaxed even our sculpted blogger's physique. [via YouTube, YouTube, YouTube and YouTube]

Google Street View Banned from Military Bases

The US military has banned Google Street View from its bases after photography and video was posted of Fort Sam in Texas that potentially threatened security. According to the Inquirer, the Pentagon got "its knickers in a twist" after a vehicle carrying Street View equipment was allowed access to the base, capturing "where all the guards are, how the barriers go up and down, and how to get in and out of buildings." Information that the military is worried could aid the dreaded terrorist masterminds currently plotting our demise. More »

Test Your Driving The Army Way!

Can you read any portion of an eye chart? Can you tell a red light from a green one? Can you hit the brake pedal within minute or so of seeing a red light? Yes? Then you may be qualified to drive a great big truck loaded with Honest John missile warheads! This "Driver Training and Testing Device, Portable" can be yours for a Buy It Now of just $31.99, and it seems like a pretty cool- though admittedly useless- thing to have sitting in the garage. I recall using a device something like this one in driver training class in the early 80s; you watched a jittery 16mm movie of blurry kids running out into the 1948 street and stomped the brake pedal more or less at random. [eBay Motors]

What's Your All-Time Favorite Military Land Vehicle?

The standard-issue olive green 1942 Pontiac Torpedo from this morning's DOTS and the Post-Apocalyptic vehicle poll got us thinking about the vehicles that serve so bravely in war. On one hand there are the classic Jeeps of WWII. Then there is the modern and much safer International Maxxpro. Those are trucks. What about tanks? In Alamein to Zem Zem, the poet Keith Douglas describes his experience in the African desert in an Mk. III Crusader

"To see these tanks crossing country at speed was a thrill which seemed inexhaustible — many times it encouraged us, and we were very proud of our Crusaders; though we often had cause to curse them."

More »

1942 Pontiac Torpedo

There must be a long and complicated story behind this car, which I've seen around town for many years, but all I know for sure is that its owner once owned a 40s-memorabilia shop downtown and still drives the car regularly. You don't see many 1942 model American cars, since those pre-Starion Mitsubishis and their Pearl Harbor drive-by caused what few '42s were manufactured to be drafted for military service. This '42 sports full military regalia and lives full-time on the street in Alameda's East End. More »

VW Touareg Gets Military Makeover

It looks like the German military have adopted the Volkswagen Touareg as a light reconnaissance vehicle. Our second favorite part, after the machine gun, is the matte green paint and blacked out fascia. It looks so good VW should offer this as an option. [Via CarScoop] More »

Chicago Auto Show: International MaxxPro

International didn't just bring it's super shredder semi, the International LoneStar to the show. They also brought the US Military's latest wheeled transport, the International MaxxPro. The imposing vehicle is basically a purpose-built mobile bomb shelter, capable of taking a hit from any direction, as well as fording bodies of water as deep as 36 inches, just for the hell of it. When we opened the door—or more precisely, tried to open the door—we had to abandon all all our stuff and put our weight behind the effort. The thick armor plated doors were almost as heavy as the ones on an old Mark VIII. While the Humvee is impressive in its general-purpose skills, this thing is just a plain beast. We want a test drive of the take home version. Any vehicle with gun portals gets an "A" in our book. More »

Tomcar Light Armored Vehicle: For When You're Under Fire And In A Hurry

Whether you're patrolling the DMZ or just hunting with a bunch of drunk rednecks, an extreme off-roader with NIJ Level III bulletproof glass and armored plates isn't a bad idea. Throw in a liquid-cooled 1197 cc, 4-stroke Subaru three-cylinder engine and you'll be able to get away from the bad guys or Big Earl before something unpleasant happens. That's just what Tomcar, maker of a host of light off-road commercial and recreation vehicles, is offering up for security firms and governments. Though small, this capable dirt devil can carry approximately 440 pounds of ammo or gear in its cargo box. More »

The Indian Humvee: Mahindra Axe

For a long time, the Indian Self Defense Forces have been running around in WW2 era Jeeps made with surplus or auctioned off tooling. The pressure to keep up with the Joneses has the military in the final approval stages for a new vehicle called the Mahindra Axe. The rugged compact military transit is powered by two different engine options - a 2.7L diesel from Ssangyong, and a 4.2L unit you may have seen under the hood of your local Chevy Trailblazer. Rumor has it they're developing a home grown engine option as well as a civilian version. Maybe that name is having an effect on us, but we wonder we can get ours with the Gulf Oil Livery. More »

PCH, War Wagon Edition: Faun-Kraka or Studebaker Weasel?

Well, it looks like yesterdays Heap-O-Parts GM Convertible Challenge Poll has come out so close as to be a virtual tie. Today we're going to shift gears and go with a couple vehicles that- if running- could be just the thing for your post-apocalyptic survivalist compound in the woods. Yes, it's War Wagon Hell today! More »

Out of the Way, Knaves: It's Tank Limo!

From the Fun with Government Surplus department comes Tank Limo, the toy-slash-business of some blokes with big ideas and a fleet of military equipment. It's a renovated field hustler fitted with smoked glass, a fridge, twin DVD players, back-up cameras and completely retrimmed interior. They're in process of installing 44 feet of remote neon tubes and a Jacuzzi, about which they say, "If you hear a rumor it's a 5 foot sheep dip with a pump and heat exchanger it might not be true." It can fit three crew and eight passengers (the tank, not the jacuzzi) and is perfect for weddings, proms or launching a coup on Bolivia. Your choice. [Tank Limo via Make]

You Wish Your Pinzgauer Could Do This: Unimog!

We've got a fair number of civilian-owned military vehicles in Alameda, including the Pinzgauer, the M43 Dodge Ambulance, and the 1945 Ford GPW Jeep. Well, those old soldiers can just fade away, because now we've got this monster living on the island's East End! More »

Dodge M43 Ambulance

I'm not sure what's up with this neighborhood in Alameda's East End, but the streets have quite a few military vehicles parked in front of Craftsman bungalows. In addition to this Air Force ambulance, there's the Pinzgauer, the Ford GPW Jeep, and another couple of war-wagons I haven't posted yet. Is is some sort of requirement that each block have at least one? Such are the mysteries of the Island City. More »

Stop Worrying and Love the T-34

We here at tha Jalop tend toward two sorts of vehicular affection. We adore the high-tech and revolutionary, but we're just as smitten with mass-produced machines for the general populace. The T-34 strikes us as the 20th Century vehicle that really hit smack-dab in the middle of that matrix. It was KISS-simple, it worked well, and its continued supremacy was a result of an incredible logistic reorganization of the world's largest nation's manufacturing base. As is the unfortunate case of practically any large-scale government project, there were many, many tragic human casualties, and the subject of that is an Encyclopedia Brittanica-length story in and of itself. Nevertheless, the T-34 stands as one of the most world-changing vehicles of the 20th Century, and to be honest, while we could never see ourselves rolling in a King Tiger, despite its inherent, unfortunate majesty, and we've always found Shermans a bit ungainly, we could roll correct in a T-34. The rest of the T-34 saga after the jump. More »

Bumping Through Baghdad

Driving an American military vehicle in Baghdad is somewhat of a dodgy career choice these days for reasons that we're pretty sure we need not go into. It is, however, interesting the driving tactics the soldiers have devised to get from one place to another in the beleagured city. Soundtrack is NSFW, but it does add somewhat of a mesmerizing rhythm to the action. [Thanks to Tiffany for the tip.]

There's Lots of Room for You on the Bandvagn 202

You can grumble and moan that it's only got ninety horsepower, but that doesn't stop the Volvo Bandvagn 202 from being irrepressably awesome. First of all, it's Swedish. Secondly, it's steered by hydraulic rams that bend the vehicle in the middle. Thirdly, it exhibits less ground pressure than Sven Schmoe on a pair of Rossignols. And lastly, and most importantly, the goldurned contraption is fully amphibious! Although it went out of production in '81 and has since been replaced in service by the Hägglunds Bandvagn 206, the 202 is the obvious choice for the go-anywhere man who appreciates modern girls and modern rock 'n' roll. More »

In Russia, Zil Screws You!

Who else but the Russians could ever dream up a corkscrew drive system? (Seriously, who?) You'd be hard pressed to find a more expressive conjugation of Russian brutalism and theater of the absurd in the automotive world. Actually you don't have to look that hard. I'm just glad we're all friends again. [Thanks to Alexander for the tip.] – Mike Spinelli More »

Because We Could All Use More Ekranoplan in Our Lives

Just a friendly reminder. Nothing rocks your butt off like an ekranoplan. Nothing. – Davey G. Johnson More »

You Wish Your Hummer Could Do This: Pinzgauer!

So far, all the Down On The Alameda Street cars have been, well, cars. But old trucks are cool, too, and it goes without saying that we approve of any street-driven vehicle with six-wheel-drive... More »

Standing at the Gates of the West: So-Cal Hot Rodding and the War

To Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, the Gates of the West may have been New York City. Or Saint Louis. Or San Francisco, where they holed up to record overdubs and vocal tracks for Give 'Em Enough Rope with Sandy "More Cowbell" Pearlman. But for many returning soldiers at the end of World War II, the Gates of the West were the breakwaters of San Pedro Bay, at the dangling, southwesterly tip of Los Angeles. Last night, Kasey Dubspeed and I did a runner from the coast up to Cole Coonce's place in Eagle Rock (or "Buzzard Boulder," as Cole perennially refers to it) for his annual Memorial Day barbeque. Cole's backyard is somehow an odd nexus of Los Angeles culture of the city's Golden Age. I spent much of the evening chatting with fashion-and-film-industry people, but at Cole's, one may just as likely end up in a conversation with a Top Fuel driver, a cycling fanatic or a random person who saw the Germs like 48 times and lived to tell the tale. The Second War, as Mike Watt refers to it, gave the world Los Angeles — a diverse, wonderful, maddening, depressing, stunning, sick megalopolis. The GIs who stepped off the boat here after the cessation of hostilities gave us hot rodding. More »

Gee Willikers, Anatoly! Ekranoplan!

The Russians are great at building fearsome, crazy things. Take, for example, the AH-64 Apache. It's not cute. It's certainly deadly. But is it nearly as scary as the Mil Hind? That thing was so nuttily freakish that under some circumstances it was in danger of falling out of the sky if it stopped moving! Or say, the Antonov An-225. Bigger than a C-5, and definitely more imposing. Plus, the guys who fly them these days are known to barbeque on the upper deck. But even crazier (and somehow an amalgam of the two in our mind) is the Lun-class ekranoplan, which is like a high-speed flying boat that never gets more than a few feet off the water. Click the video and tell us you don't wet your pants in a mixture of glee and terror when the thing looses one of its six Sunburn anti-ship missiles. Go ahead. Tell us. We long to see one hurtling across the Bonneville Salt Flats. Somebody make this happen. – Davey G. Johnson More »

The Aggressor: A Hybrid for Iraq

Popular Mechanics reports on The US Army's new a hybrid-electric drivetrain, which is battery-dominant and employs a diesel engine as generator. It's the driving force behind the Aggressor, the latest in a string of prototype alternative mobility vehicles (AMVs) for military ground operations requiring speed and stealth, such as recon and surveillance. By way of the e-motor's massive torque, the Aggressor can get from zero to 40 mph in four seconds and tops out at 80 mph. It also sports a "silent mode" giving the high-tech jeep a lower thermal signature, and making it less detectable to night vision specs. And maybe if it proves itself on the mean streets of Baghdad, some rich Austrian dude will order one for civilian use, sparking a revolution in the SUV market. Hey, it could happen. – Mike Spinelli More »

All Aboard Amtrac!

Last night, we were considering the Loverman and thought about his old band, Tarawa. Now, Tarawa circa late 1943 is no place for a Loverman. In fact, it was more appropriate for his inverse, the Fighterman. And verily did the Fightermen arrive courtesy of the Japanese and American armed forces. And when it came time for the American soldiers to re-take the small island in a brutal battle of attrition, some came ashore in The LVT — also known as the Amtrac — an amphibious, tracked troop carrier able to carry 24 soldiers. And while the Amtracs didn't fare so well at Tarawa, they went on to play a role throughout the next two years of the war, seeing service in both the Pacific and European theatres. We want one with a howitzer. – Davey G. Johnson More »

Semper Fi, Bunky! The Mighty Mite!

Latest on the list of oddball vehicles Los Jalops must hold in our tender, loving arms is the M-422 Mighty Mite. Developed as a helicopter-transportable general-purpose vehicle for the fighting men of the USMC in a time when choppers weren't exactly muscle-bound studs, the small 4x4 nevertheless featured some cool, innovative and obscure tech. The diminutive Jeeplet was designed by a group that included some ex-Bantam types who fathered the OG GP made famous in WWII and sported an aluminum body, independent front-and-rear suspension, and a 55-horse 108-inch AMC air-cooled V4. We totally want one for French Riviera sand drags against Fiat Jollys. – Davey G. Johnson More »

Blowing Up Uday's Rambo Lambo

It can be safely said that we were no great fans of Saddam Hussein's son Uday. But we do feel sorry for his poor, beleagured Lamborghini LM002. Apparently a group of American soldiers, not realizing what the vehicle was, decided that it would be an ideal platform for studying the effects of a car bomb on a concrete barrier. Already well-beaten when the test began, the end result could safely be referred to as smithereens. – Davey G. Johnson More »

The Ride of the Amphibious Mariner: The Seep

The albatross began with his vengeance early with this one. While the VW-based Schwimmwagen was a largely successful amphibous vehicle and its larger sister the DUKW entertained a measure of success at Normandy and remains affectionately remembered today, the Ford GPA was simply not the cat's pajamas. In low-water fording situation, the standard Willys machine often did better, and the Seep suffered a fate not dissimilar from a painted ship upon a painted ocean. It wasn't exactly the answer to a question nobody asked, but it was maybe at best a hard C response to what at the time was a rather pressing query. Bruce, large Amercan truckage, 1. Seep, not so much. – Davey G. Johnson More »

Early Porsche Hybrid: The Ferdinand/Elefant

As commenter DougN pointed out earlier, Ferdiand Porsche's design for the Tiger tank was passed over for a design by Henschel. However, an armor-hungry Wehrmacht did end up with a retooled version of Porsche's Tiger in tank-killer guise. The Ferdinand had its air-cooled Porsche powerplants yanked and replaced with a pair of 300hp Maybach engines used to power electric motors. Fuel economy was an astonishing 1/4mpg. Fitted with a Krupp 88mm gun, the Ferdinands fared poorly at Kursk, where nearly half the force was lost. More »

It's Not a Car, It's a Schwimmwagen

Birthed from the loins of the K belwagen, which was itself descended from Ferdinand Porsche's KdF-Wagen design (known eventually to the plebes as the Beetle), the Schwimmwagen was one of the radder wee beasties of the Second World War. 1,130 cc quadrazontal mill, a boat-type hull, low-range four-wheel drive and a swing-a-way propeller in the back made the Schwimmwagen quite the paragon of utility. We'll take two. More »

Humber Humber! It's The Lolita Reconnaissance Car!

Yeah, see, it's perfect for checking out underage girls, see? You got your turret, you got your gunslits there; heck, if her dad comes after you with a shotgun, what's he gonna do? Take away your birthday? Oh, wait, Humber, not Humbert?. Like the Rootes Group company; right they took the Super Snipe chassis and put that there tank-like body on it and ran all over Western Europe blowing up the Germans real good like while reconnoitering various and sundry things. I gotcha now. Sorry 'bout that teenage girl thing. You know, sometimes straight-six vehicles make my brain go a bit loopy, y'know? Yeah, you know. – Davey G. Johnson More »

Kaiten, A Kamikaze Submarine

Okay, so it's not a car, a bike or even a hovercraft. It doesn't transform into anything. It apparently didn't even work all that well in its designed capacity. What is it? It's the WWII Kaiten, a Japanese invention of dubious genius that was designed to be a piloted torpedo. Motor in the back, a ton-and-a-half of HE in the nose and one or two sailors in the middle. To be honest, we can't decide whether we think it's totally rad or ridiculously creepy. Somehow, though, we can't help but applaud its desperate spirit. – Davey G. Johnson More »

Stanford Takes the Message to the Streets, DARPA-Style

One may recall Stanley, the robo-Touareg that won the 2nd DARPA Grand Challenge. Well, now the boffins in Paly are working a successor to the SUV, based on a Passat known as Junior. Junior's designed to navigate an urban environment, rather than a desert off-road course. DARPA plans to announce the location of the next race, to be held November 3rd, sometime in October. Meanwhile we're still waiting for information on the atomic-powered Saab 96 entry from Venture Industries. – Davey G. Johnson More »

Turk-183! The Volkswagen Iltis!

Yes, bro-hams, the father of the Quattro Coup , terror of Group B, was a 75-hp military vehicle designed to supplant the Volkswagen Thing. It's the Iltis, and just like the G-Wagen, it's a German vehicle appropriated by the Estonians in case the boys in Riga decided to get fresh. Conceived after Volkswagen's purchase of Auto Union, it's a kitbash of VW, Audi and DKW technology that gained favor with forces all over the globe, yet sadly, its time is passing. Still, the Belgians, Canadians and Germans cling to their Ilti. We cling to it, too. – Davey G. Johnson More »

A Big, Big Block: Ford Tank Engine in a Mustang

Should there ever be a Nobel prize for swapping huge engines from military vehicles into passenger cars, Jay Leno would probably be called to Oslo. But for every Leno there are probably at least five guys like Locomotive Breath from the Jalopy Journal forums. Into his 1970 Mustang, he dropped in a 1,100 cubic-inch Ford V8 — from a WWII Sherman tank — that makes a 427 cammer look like, oh I don't know, a Duratec 23? A Briggs and Stratton four stroke? Originally rated at 500 hp and a European theater-stomping 1,050 lb-ft. of torque, he says it's capable of far more by way of some modernizing. What manner of transmission might be under there? He says it's a "heavily modified Powerglide." You think? [Thanks to Mark for the tip.] – Mike Spinelli More »