A match made in Heaven and a little history

[Bill Hollinger]

The Mighty Mite was built in response to the Marine Corps' desire for a light weight, air transportable reconnaissance vehicle. The original spec called for the vehicle to be no more than 1600 pounds. Its prototype design featured a tube frame through which the exhaust from the Porsche opposed 4 cylinder was routed. The tube frame almost immediately proved unacceptable and only a very few were built.

Very early prototype Mite behind an M100 trailer

An old Popular Mechanics article about the prototype showing the size difference between the Mite and a Wrangler!

Later Prototype Mite carried by a CH37

Later prototype Mite carried by an H34?

Later prototype with winter inclosure


With the advent of the turbine helicopter engine came higher weight limits of airborne vehicles. At the time the Mighty Mite was being developed Willys and Kaiser were working on a 1/4 ton reconnaissance vehicle of their own, the M151. The difference was the M151 cost about $2600.00 to produce where the Mighty Mite was more like $5400.00.

There was a reason for that $5400.00 price tag however. First, few were made, 3922 units. When so few units were built the R&D costs couldn’t be spread out the over hundreds of thousands of units like the M151. Second, there was a great deal of "ahead of its time" technology that went into building the Mighty Mite. The body is made entirely of aluminum and frame of steel. The all aluminum V-4, 108 cubic inch engine was air cooled. It developed 55 horse power making it one of the powerful 4X4s ever built when calculating horse power to weight ratio. It had a top speed of 62 miles an hour which was faster than any other ¼ ton reconnaissance vehicle before or after. The suspension on the Mite uses leading and trailing tracking arms with ¼ elliptical springs instead of the more conventional straight axle and leaf spring design or the “A” arm and coil suspension of the M151. The tracking arm suspension made the Mite very stable and some have described its handling as that of a sports car. The Mite had four wheel independent suspension with inboard mounted brake drums and posi-traction all the way around. As seen in the above Popular Mechanics article it could drive on three tires!

Everything was thought of when building the Mite. The pintle hitch in the rear is mounted to a swivel that allows it to swing down and out of the way to shorten its length (for whatever good that does). Shutters were placed in front of the cooling intake so cold weather operation could be optimized or to be closed for fording. The entire system is water tight and can ford 50” of water with the addition of the fording kit. Instead of a bench seat in the rear, the Mite had fold down jump seats mounted to the rear tops of the fenders. They are not comfortable at all but they get the job done I guess! The transmission is a simple four speed gear box with a single speed transfer case. When in two wheel drive the transmission operates like a three speed because of a lock-out rod that only allows the use of first gear when the transfer case is engaged and in four wheel drive.

There were two versions of the Mighty Mite; the M422 “Shorty” and the M422A1. The wheel base on the M422 is 65” where the M422A1 is 71”. The earlier Mites all used a thin, flimsy windshield frame that was prone to breaking. Most were removed and discarded. The later Mites used a windshield frame nearly identical to the Willys M38A1 and Ford M38A1 CDN.

M422 “Shorty” Mighty Mite with the flimsy windshield


There was a special trailer the Marine Corps wanted to mate up to the Mite. That was the Stevens M416B1. There were 2000 units made. They have fuel or water can mounts forward of the fenders and like other Marine Corps ¼ ton trailers, four lifting loops, one in each corner. They also used the same wheels as the Mighty Mite for ease of standardization. These trailers were like the WWII and Korea vintage Willys MBT, Bantam BT3 and M100 trailers in that they are amphibious and are able to hold 500 pounds of cargo and still be able to float.

This is my 1962 AMC M422A1 Mighty Mite and 1965 Stevens M416B1 1/4 ton trailer. The jump seats can be seen on the tops of the rear fenders.

I hope you guys enjoyed the reading and off the top of my head Mighty Mite history lesson

Information

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[fn111557]

So this is where they got the idea for the "SMART" car!

[Bob Womack]

That's a cute little vehicle that I'd always wanted to learn about. Thanks!!!

Bob

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Not completely off the subject. Watching a documentary about the Tet offencive and wondering what the small flat bed vehicle about the size of the current UTVs (Mule Rhino etc..) that I saw several times in the documentary?

[Bill Hollinger]

M274 Mule

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

M274 Mule

Now that is some kind of cool. Many/any of those about?

[Bill Hollinger]

Oh yeah there are. They go, unrestored for $5000.00 and restored for as much as $10,000.00. I really don't understand that though. They are basically a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood with an engine and four wheels. Believe it or not, they are rated at 1/2 ton!

[Bill Hollinger]

Oh, one more thing about the M274 Mule. They ride rough as a cob and are noisy to boot! Okay, I'll admit, they're fun to drive!

[gijills]

a friend of mine has a Mite he loves it. parts can e a bear.