kurtomatic
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Welcome to the weekend, everyone.
Total noob here, starting a thread here about practical considerations of attempting to start off in this hobby with a 2+ton truck. I have to say, I didn't think at first I would be all that interested in this class of vehicle; it just screamed overkill. But as I'm quickly learning, there is no such thing as overkill! I mean, seriously, it honestly looks hard to do much in military surplus world without a strategy:
1. There are some small bits like a pallet generators, fork lifts, or similarly useful shop gear that I definitely will want on my shopping list, but just aren't a high priority at the moment.
2. Then there's the whole Humvee game, which does look attractive. The 2-door/soft top/truck body style has a lot of appeal as a practical, useful vehicle for me. With one glaring exception--you can't tow anything useful with it. If I could safely tow a water buffalo behind a Humvee, I would be all over that. You can't, and I get it.
3. For everything else, it just seems to a newbie like me that the Deuce is the center of the remaining MV universe. I mean, sure, I don't really need a crazy 6x6 truck, but if I did have one, what kind of crazy amazing things could I do with it? The military clearly made great use of this platform for so many different things. Owning one of these just solves a lot of problems owning and operating other equipment, towables in particular.
So I'm coming around to this idea of starting with a Deuce (or a similar class truck) pretty hard at this point. The questions is, if I need something I can at least make minimal use of without a multi-month shop project, is there a practical means of doing this in 2024 without spending way too much? I don't have any special requirements, other than a good value on a basic working truck that I can get fancy with farther down the line when I know what I am doing.
There are a number of vehicles in this class to consider, and I am still a little lost. For the older Deuces this forum is about, most of the ones available that I am seeing are AM General M25As of one flavor or another.
Are these what I should be looking at? As a reference, if I wanted to avoid the Iron Planet lottery, Eastern Surplus has a few barebones M35A2s each listed for $14.75K. So that seems like today's retail entry point price, ready to go with a state title. That coincidentally is right up near the top of my justifiable cost limit. I don't want to overpay, but there is value having all the paperwork and obvious mechanical issues sorted from Day 1.
Of the current Iron Planet listings, the most interesting one is a '70 M35A2 in Granbury Texas. The full listing won't go live until Thursday, but it already has nearly 500 people watch listing it!![Thinking face :thinking: 🤔](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f914.png)
Any advice or reality checks are welcome.
Cheers, and Happy New Years!
Total noob here, starting a thread here about practical considerations of attempting to start off in this hobby with a 2+ton truck. I have to say, I didn't think at first I would be all that interested in this class of vehicle; it just screamed overkill. But as I'm quickly learning, there is no such thing as overkill! I mean, seriously, it honestly looks hard to do much in military surplus world without a strategy:
1. There are some small bits like a pallet generators, fork lifts, or similarly useful shop gear that I definitely will want on my shopping list, but just aren't a high priority at the moment.
2. Then there's the whole Humvee game, which does look attractive. The 2-door/soft top/truck body style has a lot of appeal as a practical, useful vehicle for me. With one glaring exception--you can't tow anything useful with it. If I could safely tow a water buffalo behind a Humvee, I would be all over that. You can't, and I get it.
3. For everything else, it just seems to a newbie like me that the Deuce is the center of the remaining MV universe. I mean, sure, I don't really need a crazy 6x6 truck, but if I did have one, what kind of crazy amazing things could I do with it? The military clearly made great use of this platform for so many different things. Owning one of these just solves a lot of problems owning and operating other equipment, towables in particular.
So I'm coming around to this idea of starting with a Deuce (or a similar class truck) pretty hard at this point. The questions is, if I need something I can at least make minimal use of without a multi-month shop project, is there a practical means of doing this in 2024 without spending way too much? I don't have any special requirements, other than a good value on a basic working truck that I can get fancy with farther down the line when I know what I am doing.
There are a number of vehicles in this class to consider, and I am still a little lost. For the older Deuces this forum is about, most of the ones available that I am seeing are AM General M25As of one flavor or another.
Are these what I should be looking at? As a reference, if I wanted to avoid the Iron Planet lottery, Eastern Surplus has a few barebones M35A2s each listed for $14.75K. So that seems like today's retail entry point price, ready to go with a state title. That coincidentally is right up near the top of my justifiable cost limit. I don't want to overpay, but there is value having all the paperwork and obvious mechanical issues sorted from Day 1.
Of the current Iron Planet listings, the most interesting one is a '70 M35A2 in Granbury Texas. The full listing won't go live until Thursday, but it already has nearly 500 people watch listing it!
![Thinking face :thinking: 🤔](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@5.0/png/64/1f914.png)
Any advice or reality checks are welcome.
Cheers, and Happy New Years!