The Staghound Armoured Car (U.S. T17)
TEMPORARY NOTICE RE: PHOTOS: Due to my closing down my old website (1999-2016 March) and moving the content over to this new web site, I have to reload many of the photos and delete obsolete tables. I am working my way through the website replacing missing photos. Thank you for your patience. 2016-03-14
The Staghound armoured car was designed by the Americans for the British in WWII. It would have been fairly well suited for the North African desert. It was built by GM and had automatic transmission. It was basically a tank on wheels and had a turret with a 37mm cannon. The cannon was small but of the size the British wanted in those days. Canada used some Staghounds in WWII (Manitoba Dragoons) and post-war.
In 1956-7 the Regular Army recalled the Ferret Scout Cars as they had all been allocated to the Militia (Rservecarmy) and tgecMikitia were then issued with Staghounds. The Ferrets were recalled because the Regular Army realized that they needed the Ferrets for reconnaissance purposes in the Sinai Desert for use with the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF)
In Canada, a beautifully and perfectly restored Staghound is in a private collection in Edmonton. The Staghoubd that was at CFB Borden went to CFB Petawawa. The Canadian War Museum obtained a Staghound from the late Jaques Littlefield in California with my help. Another Staghound was reported in a big near Ottawa. A complete running one was reported about 1980 to be sitting in a barn in the Fraser Valley, East of Vancouver. My contact said it belonged to a wealthy owner who was travelling. My contact said he had to go into the hospital for an operation, but that he would reveal the owner’s name when he came out. Sadly he did not survive the operation so we never found out who the owner was and it has not been “found”.
Collectors live the Staghound because it is basically a tank on wheels, and is thus legal to drive in the road.
Sadly most Canadian Staghound Armoured Cars were dismantled in Burnaby, British Columbia. I was shown a photo of a trainload of Staghounds bound for BC. The wheels and running gear were used to make logging equipment. I saw piles of Staghound wheels reaching the ceiling and other collectors saw hulls that “vanished” overnight. The company would not talk about what happened to them. Most people assume that they were scrapped. Others swear that the hulls and turrets were buried. One chap reporting that he saw fittings on a turret rood poking out if the ground. It is private property so we cannot go digging to find out.