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I intend to do a "Restoration Series" on this, our 1959 British Daimler Ferret Scout Car and all it's collectable equipment schedule. The military vehicles are the "centre" of our family Military Collection. It is the Mk2/3 variant. The Daimler Ferret Scout Car (we'll call it the "Ferret" from now on to save space) would have seen service from Aden to Germany to Northern Ireland and many other places inbetween, in all it's history and number of variants. In this "series" I am going to focus mainly on this Mk2/3 type and all it's accessories and the hard "slog" it took to get it from "wreck" to "fully operational"

Photo .1 Is my brother Keith (owner) on the day it was first collected. A bit of work and it fired up after many years! We drove it 30 miles to the holding area! That was an adventure in itself!! At one stage we were at a road "T" junction, when a Police car skidded to a stop...the two police officers looked at us, looked at each other, shook their heads in the negative and drove on their way! (?? Too much difficult paperwork??)

Photo.2 Is my good self, posing proudly with the beast.

Photo.3 Loading up and final check ready for Keith to drive it 250 miles to restoration base. That was a truely insane journey, using motorways and several instances of rubber-necking, head shaking Police Officers, slowing down, before speeding off with a final despairing wave of disbelief!

Photo.4 The fate of our Ferret if we had not rescued it from a similar situation! The Government are not too happy about operating Military hardware, especially armour, falling into civilian hands. Both being dedicated members of the UK "Military Vehicle Trust" does help. In later posts I will show it in it's full and final glory, representing at Veterans Parades and Military Shows!

Brief History:

The Ferret was developed in 1949 as a result of the British Army's need to obtain a replacement model for its Second World War light armoured vehicles. Due to the success of their Reconnaissance Scout Car, the "Dingo", Daimler was employed to design and manufacture the Ferret. Although "Daimler" it is powered by the awesome Rolls Royce B60 engine. To see our Ferret and HEAR the B60 run cut'n'paste the link below into your browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5puhWiUNoI

I will later post another video of one of our more memorable road runs!!

The Ferret shared many similar design features with the Dingo and Canadian Ford Lynx, but featured a larger fighting compartment and an optional small machine gun turret. It was built from an all-welded monocoque steel body, making the vehicle lower but also making the drive extremely noisy inside as all the running gear was within the enclosed body with the crew. Four wheel drive was incorporated together with "Run flat" tyres (which kept their shape even if punctured in battle, thus enabling a vehicle to drive to safety.) The turret, though not fitted to all models, carried a single machine gun. Six grenade launchers fitted to the hull (three on each side) could carry smoke grenades.

It is fast and small enough to be used in an urban environment but strong enough to negotiate rugged terrain off road. The Ferret is no longer in service in the British Army, although several Commonwealth countries still operate them to this day. They have been popular with private collectors like my brother and I; due to the compact size and affordable price e.g. around $20,000 to $30,000 in the USA, $40,000 to $60,000 In Australia and New Zealand, and £12,500 to £18,500 in UK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferret_armoured_car

Heres the link for PART 2 of my Collectors Weekly post on the Ferret:

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/69417-daimler-ferret-restoration-no-2?in=activity