Keith Nattrass’ new truck causes a stir wherever he goes, if not with its quarter-inch armor plating, then its three belt-fed machine guns.
“The nice thing is being able to secure a piece of history,” said Nattrass of Independence Township. “It would be a shame to keep it in a garage.”
He and his son, Zach Nattrass, drove the 1941 M-3A1 scout car in Clarkston’s Labor Day parade, along with other members of the Detroit Arsenal of Democracy World War II reenactment group.
“It’s kind of tricky to drive ? it shifts hard,” Zach said. “It’s a blast to zoom around in it. It turns heads, and it has some interesting stories behind it.”
Keith Nattrass plans to take the truck to community and veterans’ events throughout the area, including Independence Township, Detroit, and Lake Orion.
“We have a full calendar,” he said. “We want to share it, support and honor the greatest generation.”
He and his son already restored a 1950s-era M-37 military utility truck, which was used during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
“I was looking for a World War II truck,” Keith Nattrass said. “My dad fought in the war in Africa and Italy ? he was a tank commander on a Sherman.”
He found out about the M-3 from a friend in the reenactment group, an affiliate of Military Vehicle Preservation Association which they joined after restoring the M-37 last year.
“Zach is off to college, so I wasn’t looking for a full restoration project,” Keith said.
He went to St. Louis about four weeks ago to look at the vehicle, which was stored in a garage.
“It was buried in stuff, like how you have a ping-pong table and it just gets covered,” he said. “I made an offer and picked it up a week later.”
Researching the vehicle’s history, he learned it was imported as scrap metal from Greece, where it ended up after the war. It may have been restored by former engineers with White Motor Car, which designed and constructed the trucks.
“It’s pretty doggone rare,” he said.
To get it running again, he had to completely clean its fuel system and redo the brakes.
“Basically clean it up,” he said. “The fuel was all tar.”
Keith works in Detroit for General Motors, but is not an automotive engineer. They used vintage, highly detailed field manuals in their restoration work.
“This is all self-taught ? we learned on the fly,” he said.
White Motor Company designed the M-3 in 1938, making it one of America’s first armored vehicles. Based on the company’s truck chassis, the open-top vehicle was armed with one .50-caliber and two .30-caliber machine guns.
It was used early in the war by U.S. armored and calvary forces in Africa and Italy, replaced in frontline units by halftracks and other armored vehicles. With a maximum speed of 55 mph on paved roads, its mission was to scout ahead of armored formations.
“The idea was for it to zoom in and set up a perimeter with its machine guns and report back to the main unit,” Keith said.
Original equipment on his truck included wooden ammunition boxes, cables, blackout lights, pioneer tools, canvas, map light, oven mits to scoop out piles of hot cartridge cases in combat, water cans for the water-cooled .30-calibers, and the .50-caliber M-2.
The heavy machine gun, along with the replica .30-calibers, have welded bolts so they can’t fire live ammunition. Keith equipped the main gun with a propane system to simulate automatic fire, as demonstrated at the parade.
With the M-37 and M-3A1, Keith’s garage is full.
“This is it, it completes the set,” he said.
He’s getting period-correct uniforms to wear while showing the vehicles, though. Schools, veterans groups, and other community organizations can contact him at knattrass@comcast.net.