Jim,
I was reading in the SurvivalBlog Archive and it seems that you used to own a Ferret armored car. It piqued my curiosity and I have researched it all over the Internet. I found out that it had 8-to-16mm of armor but nowhere does it say what projectiles that [armor] will stop. What ordnance are these resistant to? To .50 caliber. To .30 caliber? Bugging out in one of these would be interesting. Ideally you would want two Ferrets to bug out so you could rake the mutant zombies off of each other but will your gun punch holes in your friend’s Ferret if you were just trying to get bad guys off the top of his Ferret. Can you recommend a web site to research these cool vehicles? There seems to be a lot of sites that only have a short summary about it but only general information. Do you know of any forums that talk about these vehicles in detail? Thanks, – Jeremy
JWR Replies: Ferret scout cars are certainly fun vehicles to own, but they are:
1.) Quite noisy (you need to wear earmuffs inside),
and,
2.) Surprisingly small. Their ground “footprint” is about the same size as a Chevy Suburban. They just weigh four or five tons. Most Ferrets only seat two: a driver and a “commander”. (Or perhaps three for short distances if you leave the radio mount area behind the commander’s seat open.) They were designed to be scout/reconnaissance vehicles–not serious armored fighting vehicles.
and,
3.) Short range. They only have a range of about 180 miles, at the typical 4 mpg (off road) to 7 mpg (highway). Strapping additional gas cans on externally would of course be a hazard.
For the second two factors cited, I do not consider Ferrets serious survival vehicles. They are just too small to carry enough cargo and fuel to be practical.
My Ferret was one of just a handful of the up-armored Mark 4 model in the United States. (At the time it was thought to be the only Mark 4 in running condition in the US.) I bought it shortly before Y2K, when I was working in the San Francisco Bay Area as a technical writer. I had intended to use it as a “convoy escort vehicle”, to shepherd my extended family out of town in the event of a societal collapse. (I also had the all-important “accessory” Model 1919A4 in the turret–a semi-auto made by Valkyrie Arms. With some reluctance I sold my Ferret along with the M1919A4 just before we moved back to hinterboonies in mid-2002.
The upgraded armor on the Mark 4 model will reportedly stop .50 BMG frontally, but only .30 armor piercing (AP) on the sides. The armor on the much more common Mark 2 model will stop .30 caliber AP frontally, but only .30 soft nose (not AP or even FMJ “ball” ammo) on the sides.
To provide truly practical armored “Get Out of Dodge” capability, I would instead recommend buying a pair of the much more roomy Cadillac Gage V-100 wheeled APCs (with squad-size capacity), preferably with the combination .30/.50 belt-fed turret. (For scraping goblins off of friendly APCs, you would naturally safe the .50 M2 and fire just the .30 caliber, or perhaps even just a .223 or shotgun from a firing port.) All this Road Warrior-ish talk may sound captivating, but be forewarned that V-100s are quite rare and $80,000 plus, without armament. This is yet another reason that I discourage “land mobile” retreating.
For anyone considering buying a Ferret, I recommend the Ferret Heaven discussion board. as well as this page at Doug’s, and the archived pages from Jim Webster’s now defunct “Ferret Heaven” web site.
One reputable armored vehicle dealer that I can recommend is David Uhrig.