Does anyone have any good resources for the history of a MV?

[CCATLETT1984]

I am looking for info on how to go about researching the history of the cucv I have. It still has the bumper numbers on it, I know that the mean something on a duece, but am not sure if its the same on the smaller trucks. (14163) is the number stenciled onto the tailgate of the truck.

 

[mudguppy]

bumper numbers are how a vehicle is identified, regardless if it's a cucv, deuce, M1 abrams, or Apache. if it was a unit vehicle, it would have some unit designation on it. since it doesn't, it's possible that it could have been a civilian contractor or DOD truck for an organization like DRMO or DOL. they STILL have cucv's and the like running around on ft. stewart - for the DOL employees.

probably the only way you could get the history/maintenance records would be to go back to where it came from and find out where they maintained those vehicles. there is usually a motorpool even for the civilian vehicles. they're not as good about keeping maintenance records for their own vehicles, but they might have something.

sorry, i just gave you a lot of "ifs"......

 

[CCATLETT1984]

What would the unit designation look like? where on the vehicle would t be found?

 

[mudguppy]

it would be on the bumper. i'll give you an example: my HMMWV was M10, and i was in the 632nd Maint Co. on the left side of the bumper were the parent units and on the right was the unit and number, kinda like this:

___________________________________________________________
3 DSB 87 CSB (-------------------space--------------------) 632 MC M10
___________________________________________________________


of course, every installation has different standards, but from what i've seen, they're all pretty close. there's always some sort of unit designation (3 ID, 1 CAV, 3-3 AD, etc) on the bumper number so you know who's unit that vehicle belonged to.

that's why i say a lack of unit designation may mean it last belonged to a civilian or dod contractor. usually i only see a number (or nothing) on the bumper on dod vehicles, but sometimes it'd say DOL or DRMO or something. just a thought.