Mark 44 Armored Car

[Harold Biondo]

I am trying to locate the last surviving Mark 44 armored car (https://warwheels.net/Mark44index.html). It was owned by George Denkins, who owned a gun store called D&D Guns in Hurricane, West Virginia. He passed away in the 2010s and his wife took over the FFL for a time, but it expired in 2019. According to Google Earth, the Mark 44 disappeared from their property in October 2015. I was in the area recently photographing tanks and when I drove by the house it's completely abandoned, so I don't know how to get in contact with them, and I sort of doubt the family still owns the vehicle.

The Mark 44 was a private venture by the Floridian firetruck company Emergency-One. They built 6 of them, and this is the last known to survive. I have a particular interest in the Mark 44 because I own the original concept model for it.

My question is if anyone here knows anything more about where it went or who owns it now.

 

[M813rc]

Well, that explains why George stopped responding to my emails, I didn't realize he had passed. Never met him personally, but he seemed a nice fellow.

I didn't know him at the time, but when the vehicle was auctioned off by the agency that had it, it became obvious he wanted it a lot more than I did!
We got in touch after the sale and I shared with him what information I had on the vehicles, and let him know how rare a vehicle it was (which he was not aware of previously).

It was for sale on David Uhrig's website around 2015, you might contact them and see if they can give you a lead.

I too would like to know where it went. I'll put out some feelers.

Cheers

 

[Harold Biondo]

Thanks, I would appreciate it.

Here is the listing on armyjeeps.net in 2015 https://web.archive.org/web/20151107203234/http://www.armyjeeps.net:80/armor1.htm It links to the same thing on the D&D Guns website, which I did look at before, but I guess not in the right time period, because there's a big "APC for sale" link right on the homepage which I never saw. David Uhrig died in 2017, and the armyjeeps site went down in 2023. I just tried calling the sales number but it went straight to voicemail.

If you were in the auction, do you remember anything more about the first time it sold? Like, where, when, who was selling it, how much it went for. I'm just curious.

 

[M813rc]

I'll look at my files when I get home this evening. If I remember correctly, it was sold by the Charleston County SC sheriff's office around 2008. Final bid was something like $18k, not including fees etc. I would have tried harder to get it, but I was working on my V100 at that time. When it came up for sale in 2015, the price was exponentially higher!

Cheers

 

[B3.3T]

Dave Uhrig and his wife have both passed several years ago and the website is inactive.

 

[M813rc]

Sorry, neglected to get back on this.

Here are some pictures from the original auction.
I had saved screen shots of the actual auction, but they are not in my file here, I think they are stuck in the depths of my old computer that slammed shut one day.

Cheers

 

[Harold Biondo]

Those are great. It's a shame that archive.org didn't save any of the sale listing images except in thumbnail size.
I sent a letter today to the Denkins family asking about the vehicle in the hope that maybe someone will still be picking up the mail there.
I have the copy of Classic Military Vehicle magazine with the article about the Mark 44, it's the only published information about it that I know of. I'll get that scanned sometime and post it here.