The sound of the Staghound's engines growling to life brings tears to Numi Stefanson's eyes.
Stefanson, a native of Winnipegosis, Man., and a retired trooper with the 12th Manitoba Dragoons, drove a Staghound armoured car in Europe during the Second World War.
"They were easy to drive," he says, although it took some elbow grease to move the wheel of the 13-tonne behemoth.
Stefanson got a pleasant surprise Wednesday when he met Reg Hodgson in St. Albert. Hodgson, who restores military vehicles, happened to have one of the few restored Staghounds in the world and even had it made up with the markings of the Dragoons. The pair took it out for a spin.
Stefanson's eyes brim with tears as Hodgson revs the vehicle's twin engines. It's the first time he'd seen or heard a Staghound since 1945, he says. "When I came down here, I wasn't expecting this."
Armoured history
Hodgson, a retired dean of student services for the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and brother to local car salesman Ron Hodgson, has been restoring military vehicles for 43 years.
"I was in the army reserve and I've always been interested in military history," he explains. He's now rebuilt about 25 vehicles including the Staghound, many of which are seen in local parades.
The T17E1 Staghound was an armoured car designed by Chevrolet in 1943, according to historians, and was used for reconnaissance. Crews would go deep behind enemy lines and scout out trouble for the rest of their unit, says Gord Sim, secretary for the 12th Manitoba Dragoons and 26th Field Regiment Museum in Manitoba. "You were the guys who got shot at first."
Equipped with power steering, twin engines and electric windshield wipers, the Staghound was way ahead of its time, Hodgson says. "None of that stuff came out on cars until the mid-1950s." It was also very fast, capable of hitting 88 km/h, speed the crews needed to run from tanks.
This particular Staghound was sold as surplus from the 19th Alberta Dragoons of Edmonton in the 1950s, Hodgson says. It was in rough shape by the time he got it in the early 1980s. "It was gutted and rusty and dirty," he says, with no engines or wiring. "The wiring had all rotted out."
Hodgson spent four years fixing the machine, scrounging parts from England, Italy, America and Toronto. He started driving it to military parades across the Prairies.
John Sieffert, Stefanson's nephew, learned about Hodgson's vehicle and arranged this visit. "This is really special," he says. "He [Stefanson] is really thrilled to see this kind of thing."
Dangerous work
Stefanson says he spent his tour in Europe behind the wheel or machine gun of a Staghound. "That was my job right there," he says, pointing to the ball-mounted machine gun sticking out of the front of the vehicle. He and four others would cram into this iron box, peering out shoebox-sized portholes or finger-wide periscopes as two 97-horsepower motors roared in their ears.
Stefanson is reluctant to talk about his time in the war, but recalls some heavy fighting in Caen, France. "We were sitting still quite a while because the Germans were well embedded in the place," he says. "You were safe as long as a big shell didn't hit you."
They didn't have ear protection or helmets, he adds — just black berets.
The Staghound was not meant for pitched battle, Sim says, having little armour and a small 37-mm gun. "The big idea was to shoot and scoot." That didn't always work — about 54 members of the Dragoons were killed during the war.
The worst part of driving a Staghound was the friendly fire, Hodgson says. Allied fighters couldn't see a vehicle's markings from 10,000 feet, veterans tell him, and often shot at Staghounds as they charged back to home base.
Stefanson says he wouldn't want to drive a Staghound again. "When you're younger, you don't think the same way as you do when you get older."
Still, his face lights up with wide-mouthed, transcendental joy as the Staghound rolls by. "It reminds me of the old times, no doubt about that," he says.
The Staghound and other vehicles will be on display in Lions Park this Canada Day, Hodgson says.
