As I mentioned a couple days ago, the FC Round up was this weekend in Arizona. Well, I didn’t have time to make it down there. But, that didn’t stop me from having a FC Round Up of my own.
A reader asked me to check out a Forward Control for sale about 45 minutes north of me. I had some time today, so I drove out to meet with the seller, Daryl, who was awfully nice and very informative.
Well, it turns out Daryl didn’t just have 1 FC, he had 5: 2 FC-170s, an FC-170 DRW, an FC-170 with an expertly extended frame and aftermarket Dually setup, and an FC-150. Daryl had a story about each one and pointed out some things I didn’t know. Daryl and his son developed an interest in them a few years ago, brought them home, and hope to get working on them soon.
The nicest one, which Daryl has for sale, runs and drives, so he took me for a ride. It was the first ride in an FC for me and, hopefully, not the last! We cruised up the road a bit, then cruised back. I had hoped to take a video, but the video on my phone stopped working (turns out it was operator error, but I didn’t figure that out until later).
He said he didn’t mind if I posted a few pictures, so here they are. Thanks for a fun afternoon Daryl!
Here’s a shot of their collection:
Here’s an FC-170 that was used for years by a farmer to feed his cattle. But he had a problem, how could he stand on the back of the FC and toss the hay off the back and drive at the same time? His solution was his custom auto pilot contraption. He would get the Jeep going, attached his ‘auto pilot’ and then climb into the back and throw out hay as he drove along.
This FC-170 DRW has a racheting system to raise and lower the spare tire. I don’t remember ever coming across other FCs with that. Unfortunately, it was hard to get a great shot of this.
