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General Patton's Dodge WC57 Command Car headed to auction

Indiana will see some excellent vintage metal on several auction blocks this summer. Mecum Auctions has the 1965 Pontiac GeeTO Tiger and 1963 Shelby Cobra that was a Ford demonstrator planned for in Indiana in late June. Two weeks before that, and as noted by Carscoops, Worldwide Auctioneers will offer what could have been Gen. George S. Patton’s Dodge WC57 Command Car. We say "could have been" because although the WC57 came out of the National Military History Center in Auburn, Indiana, a few years ago and is fitted with the modifications Patton made to his personal WC57, the auction house doesn't have paperwork explicitly linking Patton to this car, and there are other replicas of Patton Command Cars out there. That could help explain why when RM Auctions put this WC57 up for sale in 2017 with a pre-sale estimate of $100,000 to $150,000, the vehicle failed to make the $60,000 reserve. Dodge had been making vehicles for the U.S. military since before World War I, most of them based on civilian models. Before the U.S. entered World War II, Dodge turned its civilian TC pickup into the 1940 VC-1 military truck. The VC-1 quickly evolved into the WC range, the WC57 Command and Reconnaissance Weapons Carrier riding on a three-quarter-ton, 4x4 chassis and weighing almost 5,400 pounds. Built from 1942 to 1945, they were powered by Dodge's T214 side-valve, 230-cubic-inch inline-six with 92 horsepower.   This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. General PattonÂ’s Dodge WC-57 Command Car - Offered Without Reserve The WC57 was simple, reliable, capable, and at the end of the war, was part of the inspiration for the Dodge Power Wagon. The story is that soldiers returning from active duty badgered Dodge for a civilian version of the indefatigable WC warhorse, so Dodge responded with the postwar's most hardcore pickup in 1946. The open-topped WC57 rig was also popular with U.S. Army officers, and because of that, it was popular target practice for German infantry and Luftwaffe pilots. So Patton, before heading to France in 1944 with the Third Army, had the motor pool in Cheltenham, England, modify his WC57. Mechanics added an armor flap to shield the radiator, half-inch armor plate under the floor, and a Browning M2 .50-caliber machine gun for fending off aerial attacks. A second, drop-down tailgate provided extra space and covered tool storage.

China's Geely says it has no plan to buy Fiat Chrysler — as FCA stock leaps

HONG KONG — Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile denied media speculation on Wednesday that it planned to make a takeover bid for Fiat Chryslerk Automobiles (FCA), the world's seventh-largest automaker. Geely was one of several Chinese carmakers cited in by Automotive News, which said representatives of "a well-known Chinese automaker" had made an offer this month for FCA, which has a market value of almost $20 billion. "We don't have such a plan at the moment," Geely executive director Gui Shengyue told reporters at an earnings briefing, when asked if Geely was interested in Fiat. He said a foreign acquisition would be complicated, but he did not elaborate. "But for other (Chinese) brands, it could be a fast track for their development," Gui added. However, a source close to the matter said FCA and Geely Automobile's parent firm, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, had held initial talks late last year, without disclosing their nature. The source confirmed Geely was no longer interested in FCA, noting that the parent company had only three months ago announced its first push into Southeast Asia with the purchase of 49.9 percent of struggling Malaysian carmaker Proton, a deal that also included a stake in Lotus. Geel's denial failed to dent FCA's stock. The price of its Milan-based shares has jumped more than 10 percent to a 19-year high since Automotive News first reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources, that FCA had rejected the Chinese offer as too low. FCA stock on the New York Stock Exchange rose sharply on Monday from $11.60 to $12.38 and on Wednesday was trading at $12.84. FCA declined to comment on Wednesday. FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has repeatedly called for mergers as a way of sharing the costs of making cleaner, more advanced cars, but he has repeatedly failed to find a partner and retreated from his search for in April, saying FCA would stick to its business plan. He has also spoken of spinning the successful Jeep and Ram divisions off from FCA. Europe's largest carmaker, Volkswagen, and General Motors have both said they are not interested in talks with FCA. On Wednesday, Geely Automobile reported a doubling of first-half profit, above expectations, as cars designed with Sweden's Volvo won over domestic consumers. Volvo is a unit of the Zhejiang Geely group, and has recently announced it will share its technology with Geely.

General Lee Dodge Charger replica jumps Dukes of Hazzard-style in Downtown Detroit

Ouch. That was our first reaction after we saw the video up above, in which stunt driver Raymond Kohn goes full-on Bo and Luke Duke in a specially prepared Dodge Charger right in the middle of Downtown Detroit. The jump looks good – and, courtesy of the whistling-Dixie horn of the Charger, sounds good, too – until you see the landing. Like we said, ouch. The ramp stood just five feet tall, but since the bright orange '69 Charger was traveling around 55 miles per hour when it launched, the car soared 25 feet in the air over a distance of 134 feet. That's pretty impressive. Apparently, the car was modified to take the brunt of the landing forces at impact to help keep Kohn safe (relatively speaking, of course). The stunt was a promotion for the 65th annual Autorama Show, which is taking place this weekend at the Cobo Center in Detroit. Scroll down to watch a video interview with Kohn that was shot right after the stunt, and stick around till the end to see the automotive carnage close up. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Related Video: