Ford V 3000

The Ford V 3000 and its civilian sibling the B 3000 were the three-tonne truck lines that Ford-Werke AG built at its Cologne-Niehl plant during the Second World War. They grew out of the 1939 to 1941 G987T, G917T and G997T trucks that the Wehrmacht already used, and from 1941 they were built as the standard V 3000 S, the all-wheel-drive V 3000 A and the civilian B 3000, following the 1940 facelift of the American Ford truck. The standard V 3000 S carried a 3.9 litre V8 petrol engine rated at 95 PS (70 kW), a five-speed gearbox and a flatbed body with a tarpaulin, and weighed 2,540 kg ready for service. The V 3000 S also became the base of the half-tracked Maultier, of which about 14,000 were built in Cologne and 1,000 in France. Wartime shortages simplified the bodywork until a wooden unified cab appeared, and production ended with the American advance on 28 February 1945. In 1948 the Ford Rhein and Ford Ruhr took over its place.