I have been an avid follower of SurvivalBlog for several years now and you and I want to thank JWR and my fellow readers for helping me to get prepared. I am not nearly where I want to be yet, but thanks to your books and your blog, I am leaps and bounds better prepared than I was even two years ago. I am writing this article to help others discover what took me some time and research to figure out – what would be the ideal kind of vehicle in a TEOTWAWKI bug out situation? You’re ready. You have done your homework. You have at least a years’ worth (or more) of food preps done. Check. You have your water and filtration/purification systems. Check. You have your medical supplies. Check. You have your defensive arms and armaments. Check. You are all set if you bug in.
But what if something upsets your plans? What if you have to bug out? Do you have a vehicle that can get you through the worst conditions? I am not just talking about bad weather. What if the roads are blocked or damaged and you need to go off-road? What if some bridges are blown and you need to cross streams? Now, how close do you live to that nuclear plant downwind of you? Less than 100 miles? Less than 50 miles? Oh, that’s bad for you. If the grid goes down, either through a solar storm or a cyber attack, that’s not good. If there is a high altitude EMP attack, that is probably the worst case scenario. You see, those nuclear plants have about a week’s worth of diesel fuel to power their cooling pumps. After that, bad things happen. You remember Chernobyl, don’t you? Guess what – Chernobyl is coming to your town if the grid goes down and they can’t get extra diesel fuel to those nuclear power plants before the cores melt and the spent fuel pools catch fire and disperse radioactive death for thousands of square miles. The NRC has known about this issue for years, but has taken no action. (Why don’t you write your Congressman and complain?)
So what do you do now? You were all prepared to bug in. But now, you need to leave. If you already have a place to go, you’re already one very large step ahead of the Golden Horde. But what about your vehicle? That late model fancy 4×4 SUV isn’t going to even be able to leave your driveway if there is an EMP attack. Walking is going to take a long time and how are you going to carry all that food and water and guns and ammo that you acquired? Bicycling is faster, but you still can’t carry much. Maybe you have an old late 60’s muscle car that is EMP-proof. Or perhaps you were smart and have one of those ’68 Broncos or other EMP resistant 4x4s; they still aren’t going to carry all of your gear. Think about that – if you only have a few days to pack (or a few hours) and you know that you can never come back to your home or your town because it will be radioactive for 300+ years – how much will you need to take with you? What about tools? Extra clothes? Blankets? How about those bicycles? What about all those survival books that you have accumulated? How about all of your gardening tools? A years’ worth of food takes up a LOT of space and weighs many hundreds of pounds, even if it is freeze-dried! You need something that can carry all of that weight and bulk. Why, all those things must weigh thousands of pounds and certainly they won’t all fit in a Jeep or a Bronco or that old 1960s muscle car. Remember, you won’t be able to come back to your home – at least not to live there again in your lifetime if you want to survive. And even if you decide to come back to get something that you really wanted but forgot – well, it’s going to be contaminated – so you really can’t come back to take it with you anyway. It’s coming. We can’t stop it. This is TEOTWAWKI. Most people will not be prepared. People are going to starve. People will riot. There will be chaos. You need to get out – now. With the grid down, fuel will not pump from gas stations, no matter what you might have that will still drive. You have already spent a good deal of money on all of those other items that you needed. How are you going to possibly be able to carry all of those things that you want to take from your home?
Some roads may be impassible – you may need to go off-road to reach your destination. I have heard that in some places, people are even prepared to blow up bridges to stop the Golden Horde from reaching them. What if you need to cross a stream or creek? Your bug out vehicle needs to be EMP proof – otherwise, don’t even bother – it will just be an expensive lawn ornament. It needs to be easy to work on – no complex diagnostic computers – they won’t work after an EMP attack any way. You want it to go wherever a Jeep can go – so it needs to be a 4×4 (at least). You want it to be inexpensive. You don’t have $50,000 or more to buy a used Hummer H1 (and they can’t carry that much anyway). You have to be able to buy it and insure it (at least until the EMP comes) for not too much money. Let’s say your budget is $5K to $6K (it is even hard to buy a decent used 1968 Bronco for that much money, and I have seen old Toyota Land Cruisers go for over $12,000). You don’t want it to be a huge vehicle or semi-truck, since you don’t have a commercial driver’s license (CDL) to drive something like that any way. You want it to be fairly easy to drive and park and maneuver. Wouldn’t it be great if it had its own built-in air compressor, so that you could air your tires up and down as needed? Wouldn’t it be great if it could run on almost any fuel? Diesel, jet fuel, home heating oil, kerosene, biodiesel or gasoline? In that case, you could siphon fuel out of almost any vehicle that was stranded or abandoned on the road and use it.
What then, is the ultimate bug out vehicle that can solve all of these problems? Is there such a vehicle? Yes! It’s called the M35A2. It’s a surplus U.S. Army truck! What? An army truck? Yes! Popularly known as the Army’s 2-½ ton truck or “Deuce and a half,” these trucks were designed and first built in the late 1940s, and manufactured from the early 1950s all the way through the late 1980s. The government literally bought tens of thousands of these trucks. They are now (and have been for the last several decades) being sold as government surplus to American citizens from every state. They have three axles and in stock form have ten tires. The front axle drive can be engaged or disengaged at will simply by flicking a lever in the cab (no need to get out of the cab to lock hubs). That makes them literally a 6×6. They can go through mud, sand, snow – you name it. They can get across that stream if the bridge is out because they can ford over 30 inches of water (with a snorkel, some Deuces have even run completely under water!). They have no on-board computers. They have virtually no electronics on them. The engines have no ignition system (since they are primarily diesel engines). The engines are multi-fuel, designed to run on anything that might be found on the battlefield. If gasoline is used, just mix about 1 quart of motor oil for every 15 gallons of gasoline (hey, if you find an abandoned car with gasoline, just drain out the engine oil as well and mix the two and you are good to go!). They are designed to carry as much as 10,000 pounds on the road and up to 5,000 pounds off-road and can literally go almost anywhere that a Jeep can go. Plus they can tow up to 10,000 pounds. The rear bed is 8’x12′, so you can stack quite a bit of heavy gear in the back. There are even troop seats that fold down if you need to carry a lot of passengers. Empty, the truck weighs over 13,000 pounds and is built on a very stout frame, so it makes a good battering ram if you ever need to push a vehicle off the road or out of the way (or recover them from off the road) if needed.
There is a scene in the movie “First Blood” where Sylvester Stallone (as “John Rambo”) is seen busting through a road block of police cars at nearly full speed in a Deuce and a half, so you could argue that it makes a good tactical vehicle as well (who knows what you might encounter in a TEOTWAWKI situation?). And in most states (except a few like California), you don’t need a commercial driver’s license (CDL) to drive one. Most people pay less than $300 a year for insurance on a Deuce as well. And since most of these vehicles are over 30 years old, they also qualify for antique or historical vehicle status in many states (also saving on insurance and registration costs). You can find these trucks almost everywhere if you look. Look locally in Craigslist or on eBay. You can spend $2,000 and get a fixer upper, or you can spend $5,000 to $6,000 and get one that is well sorted out with good rubber and good mechanicals. These trucks were designed to be driven and worked on by 18 to 20 year olds in the motor pool, so they had to be simple and robust (though some of the parts are large and you will need some larger tools, plus you may need a buddy to help with some of the maintenance tasks).
These are bare bones trucks mind you – no creature comforts at all. Forget about a radio – the exhaust noise is too loud to be able to hear one anyway. Forget about A/C or heat (although a few have heaters), or even power steering. Not even carpeting on the floor. You need to roll your windows up or down the old-fashioned way – by hand. Some of the few options that you might find are a “springer” seat (a seat with springs and a shock absorber – more comfortable than a solid mounted seat) and perhaps a front mounted winch. It’s no hot rod sports car either. Top speed is governor limited to 56 mph. Realistically, expect about 45 to 50mph cruising speed if it’s loaded up. It does, however, have a 5-speed transmission that is practically bulletproof, and a two speed transfer case with ultra low gearing for off-roading. And they are surprisingly easy to drive. No need to double clutch, and shifting is quite smooth once you get used to the odd gear shift layout (it doesn’t follow the usual H-pattern).
Driving range is actually quite good considering that it can get 8-11 miles per gallon and it has a 50 gallon tank (that’s as good or better than some large gasoline pickup trucks). They can also be driven in “blackout” mode, so that you could, in a tactical emergency, even drive with night vision goggles and just a hint of light from the special headlights and tail lights, or totally blacked out with no lights at all (not even brake lights). The brakes are air over hydraulic, so the M35A2s come with their own on board air compressor. This can also be used to air up tires or even power air tools. With no electronic nanny systems and no ignition system, they can even be roll started or bump started in the case of a dead battery. Spare parts are readily available and also quite cheap, and many NAPA auto parts stores (as well as others) carry the more common maintenance parts like belts, hoses, oil and fuel filters and light bulbs.
Note that these trucks run on a 24-volt electrical system and requires two 12-volt batteries, so if you want to run 12-volt accessories, you need either a 24-volt to 12-volt DC-to-DC converter or else run wiring to a single battery. There is even an online forum for military vehicle owners called www.steelsoldiers.com that can help you with anything and everything about these trucks. Complete manuals for every aspect of the truck can be downloaded for free from the internet. In summation, the M35A2 “Deuce and a half” army truck is a go anywhere, carry anything, run on anything, cheap, EMP-proof, easy to drive, easy to maintain vehicle, and that makes it worthy of consideration as the ultimate TEOTWAWKI bug out vehicle.