I guess I should have posted this at the beginning of the Festival, but I was pleasantly distracted all weekend. So, here is a post about the three Bantam generations. As the oral testimony shared by Gerald affirms, there were three different models of vehicles built by Bantam.  Here is more history about the Bantam vehicles.

The Original Bantam: Below are images of the original Bantam Bantam Reconnaissance Car. Here are some images from Life Magazine from Camp Holabird.  Here is a video of Duncan’s well done original BRC Replica (which also includes a BRC-40).

The Bantam BRC-60: This is the 2nd generation BRC-60.  The easiest way to identify the differences between the BRC and the BRC-60 is to look at the fenders, note the Original BRC fenders are round, and the entry point, which is a smoother slope on the BRC-40 as opposed to the bump in the original BRC.

The Bantam BRC-40: This is the 3rd generation BRC-40.  The easiest way to identify the difference between the BRC-60 and the BRC-40 is the grille.  Note how flat the grille is compared to the rounded grille of the BRC-60. The windshield is dramatically different, as the BRC-40’s appears much stronger.  Of course, there are other differences, but those are a quick way to distinguish between the two. Here is a BRC-40 that was for sale.

I guess I shouldn’t forget the Bantam ‘Checker’: Learn more about this at Bill Spear’s website.

Finally, just to show there seems to be an exception to every rule, Gerald forwarded this image.  I believe the front of this is a Bantam BRC-60, but the door area resembles the original Bantam.  The windshield has a higher ‘bridge’ across the bottom; which doesn’t resemble either the BRC or the BRC-60 in the pics above.   I believe this was a Russian Lend/Lease vehicle, but perhaps someone else could be more specific about it.