4x4 or 4WD ??

4wd and 4x4 is one in the same as far as the lingo goes - able to handle moderate to heavy offroad conditions. Yes technically any vehicle that has all wheels drive is either.

These lesser four wheel drive vehicles are normally referred to as an AWD in the case of cars or softroaders for townie type 4x4 wagons that can only handle light off road conditions.

Garry

Photos of restored CMPs on this site:

http://www.canadianmilitarypattern.com/

Can't see to many 4x4 stickers :)

Signman,

I would go for either 4X4 or 6X6 decal which ever is the correct type of drive.

A 4WD decal would look to modern on a vehicle that old.

Wayne

A 6X4 would be six wheels but only 4 were driven at the same time ie. it has a lazy axle.

KK

Same thing.

Only different.

Does it matter?

G-day Signman,

4 x 2
4 x 4
6 x 2
6 x 4
6 x 6
8 x 4
8 x 8

are all essentially technical terms, particularly in relation to trucks, denoting firstly the number of wheels and then the number of driven wheels.

4wd (as I hope everyone knows) is an abreviation of "4 wheel drive" which I came into use in the early days of 4x4's being used non-commercially by lay people who did not understand "4 x 4".

IMHO
Peter

Why don't you contact the Australian War Museum to get an authentic reply?

DW

The first common vehicles with four-wheel drive were the ex military Jeeps and the Landrovers and they were referred to as being a "4X4" or a "four-wheel-drive" and sometimes as a "fourby". (Yes, I do know that there were much earlier vehicles with all four wheels driven. I did say "common")

Of course, during WWII and after there were a number of trucks with four or more wheels driven and usually referred to as 4X4 or 6X6 etc. I seem to remember that the Toyota Landcruisers used on the Snowy Mountains project we referred to as 4X4's.

I think the expression "4WD" was not used until maybe about early or mid 1960's in marketing the new breed of comfortable 4WD sedans for popular use.

Toyota's current website refers to "If you want to buy a 4WD, 4X4 or SUV, Toyota's extensive range of 4WD vehicles suit a variety of needs." so they are playing it both ways.

Signman,

If the "Blitz" was ex army it would have had a brass Classification plate attached somewhere in the cab stamped something like this:
Truck Ford (or Chevrolet) 3 ton GS 4x4. (plus some other details like tyre pressures ,max and min, oils required and so on)

A "Blitz" 2wd (and there were quite a few of them) would therefore be classified
Truck Chevrolet (or Ford) 3 ton 4x2 and the rest of it

That was the way it was done, probably still is. A Landrover ex army I once owned had a similar plate
Truck Landrover 1/4 Ton GS 4x4 which I took off after rebuilding back to civilian speci's then sold it. The plate is still around in a box somewhere.

Disco.

Hi signman,

Yep, I understood that your question was "when did 4x4 become 4WD".

After my earlier response above I started searching and damned if I can find much solid documentary support for my own memory as above.

Certainly the term 4WD was applied after the original term 4X4 but by whom and when I cannot determine. The problem is that contemporary writers use "4WD" when referring to even early model vehicles which may earlier have been referred to as "4X4" in their time. so history has been re-written. The only sure way is to locate original printed matter which may reveal the first use of "4WD".

I did find references that the Range Rover was referred to as a "4X4" throughout its time from 1970 to present. Whereas the Land Cruiser seems to be more often referred to as a "4-wheel drive" since its beginnings in Australia in 1958.

The first such vehicles I drove were Series 1 Landrovers on the Woomera Rocket Range in 1954 and we never seemed to use the terms "4X4" or "4WD" but simply "Landrovers".