Lawdog734
Active member
- 244
- 48
- 28
- Location
- Colbert, GA
Since I can't seem to find an appropriate subforum to share what I have at the moment, I thought I'd take a moment to introduce myself to this fraternity. I kind of accidentally fell into this category after dipping my toes in the water for the past several years. I'm from the Athens, GA area and hope to be seeing some of you in the future.
It's amazing sometimes how things have a habit of falling in your lap. In my case, usually those things are crap, but in this case I think I came out pretty good.
I've had plans over the previous six months or so of building a SEAL Desert Patrol Vehicle. Since Chenowth is out of business and there aren't exactly a glut of used chassis's out there, I decided the way to do it was via purchasing a Chenowth 4LWD setup and build it up accordingly since that is the chassis that the DPV is built off of. I've seen several for sale over the years and usually while they might be called a Desert Patrol Vehicle, in some cases even with a correct chassis, they aren't built to spec and that disappoints me. It's almost like getting an old military jeep, painting it a shoddy green color and putting street tires on it and passing it off as correct- if you're going to do it, then do it right. So that was my intention, build it as close to spec as possible.
So I put some WTB ads on some of the various buggy forums for a rig with the Chenowth 4LWD chassis - complete or otherwise. I managed to pick one up with the performance mods already done to it for a fair price-it'll be here Monday. So that's vehicle #1.
Fast forward to Tuesday, I call a friend of mine for work related business and get to talking to him about what my intentions are. He tells me that he has not just a Chenowth Desert Patrol Vehicle behind his shop, but has a 6 man Chenowth Advanced Light Strike Vehicle as well. While they clearly have seen better days, he said I could have them if I came to drag them away. All parts are there and they haven't run in about 5 years, but they'll be worth having-he was literally going to drag them to the scrap yard. Some people collect military jeeps, I guess I'll have a couple of SEAL buggies. Those will also be delivered Monday, so that's vehicle #2 and #3.
My wife is already asking me what I plan on doing with the 3 vehicles, but I think she'll get over it. Actually, I'll probably put the 4LWD for sale up on CL and use the money from that to restore the actual military vehicles. While they've certainly seen better days, they're 100% legit and complete. All I need to do is get them up and moving. I'm not really looking for something as delivered from Chenowth as much as serviceable and as they would have been signed out of a motor pool. I figure I can putz around in them, put them in an occasional show or parade. While there is always a little bit of personal ego involved (I've wanted one for years), the other purpose is to honor the SEAL community that I've had the pleasure of working close with over the years.
Does anybody have any information on these vehicles? It seems that all of the information is from 1 source that gets constantly regurgitated - SEAL Team 4, 0-30mph in 4 seconds, 200hp VW engine, blah, blah, blah. I have never seen any specifics though. There's even less info on the 6-man vehicle, what the SEALs called their "squad" vehicle.
I've Google'd every possible combination I could think of and can't seem to find anything specific on either of them. I've got an email in to Lynn Chenowth at his current business and have had no response, so I ask you folks.
- Does anybody have any specifics on these?
- How many DPV's were made? Did they all have rotating gunner seats?
- How many of the 6 man vehicles were made - I heard as little as 12, but really don't know.
- What was done to the engines? Anything special?
Granted, I suppose I'll find out the answers to some of the questions soon enough, but I'd like to learn what I can now.
It's amazing sometimes how things have a habit of falling in your lap. In my case, usually those things are crap, but in this case I think I came out pretty good.
I've had plans over the previous six months or so of building a SEAL Desert Patrol Vehicle. Since Chenowth is out of business and there aren't exactly a glut of used chassis's out there, I decided the way to do it was via purchasing a Chenowth 4LWD setup and build it up accordingly since that is the chassis that the DPV is built off of. I've seen several for sale over the years and usually while they might be called a Desert Patrol Vehicle, in some cases even with a correct chassis, they aren't built to spec and that disappoints me. It's almost like getting an old military jeep, painting it a shoddy green color and putting street tires on it and passing it off as correct- if you're going to do it, then do it right. So that was my intention, build it as close to spec as possible.
So I put some WTB ads on some of the various buggy forums for a rig with the Chenowth 4LWD chassis - complete or otherwise. I managed to pick one up with the performance mods already done to it for a fair price-it'll be here Monday. So that's vehicle #1.
Fast forward to Tuesday, I call a friend of mine for work related business and get to talking to him about what my intentions are. He tells me that he has not just a Chenowth Desert Patrol Vehicle behind his shop, but has a 6 man Chenowth Advanced Light Strike Vehicle as well. While they clearly have seen better days, he said I could have them if I came to drag them away. All parts are there and they haven't run in about 5 years, but they'll be worth having-he was literally going to drag them to the scrap yard. Some people collect military jeeps, I guess I'll have a couple of SEAL buggies. Those will also be delivered Monday, so that's vehicle #2 and #3.
My wife is already asking me what I plan on doing with the 3 vehicles, but I think she'll get over it. Actually, I'll probably put the 4LWD for sale up on CL and use the money from that to restore the actual military vehicles. While they've certainly seen better days, they're 100% legit and complete. All I need to do is get them up and moving. I'm not really looking for something as delivered from Chenowth as much as serviceable and as they would have been signed out of a motor pool. I figure I can putz around in them, put them in an occasional show or parade. While there is always a little bit of personal ego involved (I've wanted one for years), the other purpose is to honor the SEAL community that I've had the pleasure of working close with over the years.
Does anybody have any information on these vehicles? It seems that all of the information is from 1 source that gets constantly regurgitated - SEAL Team 4, 0-30mph in 4 seconds, 200hp VW engine, blah, blah, blah. I have never seen any specifics though. There's even less info on the 6-man vehicle, what the SEALs called their "squad" vehicle.
I've Google'd every possible combination I could think of and can't seem to find anything specific on either of them. I've got an email in to Lynn Chenowth at his current business and have had no response, so I ask you folks.
- Does anybody have any specifics on these?
- How many DPV's were made? Did they all have rotating gunner seats?
- How many of the 6 man vehicles were made - I heard as little as 12, but really don't know.
- What was done to the engines? Anything special?
Granted, I suppose I'll find out the answers to some of the questions soon enough, but I'd like to learn what I can now.
