Michael
> Asking price aside, what do we have here? Looks like a movie prop to me, but
> I'm not a Ferret expert. How much of it is mil issue and how much is
> add-on? What about the symbol on the side? Is it real British or Robocop or
> something?
What we appear to have is a Ferret with an identity crisis. Other than
the turret it is externally okay, heavens knows what the inside is,
like. I want to see where they managed to fit all that power steering
gear and just how they made it work on a Ferret.
They advertise it as a Mk 1 (open top version - no turret).
Yet it has a turret that no Ferret ever had issued to it.
I too suspect it is a movie prop, the paint job looks to be purpose
done to give a "used" look, sort of like the modellers try so hard
to achieve.
Looking real
close I reckon I can see a correct Mk 2 (turreted version of a Ferret)
Commanders periscope and its guard on the top of the turret.
This makes me suspect that there is:
1) A real Mk 2 turret somewhere underneath that Robocop one (whoever
made that up sure went to a lot of trouble, it appears to be quite
a nice piece of work, conical shapes are hard to make neatly!), with
what may be a late Mk 2 spot light mounted on the side. The dome hatch
on top might actually just be attached to the real one but I doubt it,
as this would mean that the hold open latch device has been cut off
as too would be the hinges which should just be visible at that viewing
angle.
OR
2) They had a Mk 2 turret and just cut the bits they wanted off it
and welded them to the fake one, this may be why they are offering it
with 2 turrets ..........
The 3 drivers periscopes appear to be real and are in their holders.
Missing are some of the hardest Ferret parts to get - the side bins.
This one needs at least the centre right (usually the first one to get
destroyed and thus the hardest to find) and the right rear bin. The
mudguards ("Wings" to the Poms and "Fenders" to you yanks) look
straight which is strange considering the bins are missing, usually
they either all get mangled at the same time or the front mudguards
are the first to suffer.
What we can't see is the left hand side and whether the escape hatch
(which is also the spare wheel holder) is still there, with for that
matter the spare wheel.
However you would describe it, "MINT" it is not.
Regards
Doug
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 23:13:24 PST