A Fist Full of Armoured Car!

By complete chance I came across a photo of an early armoured car of the Edwardian period which happened to be the very car featured in Sergio Leone classic Spaghetti Western 'A Fistful of Dynamite' (1971)!

This is one of my favourite Spaghetti Westerns, based as it is during the 1913 Mexican Revolution. And I was always curious about the little armoured car driven by the arch-baddie - Colonel Günther "Gutierez" Reza (played by Antoine Saint-John) - and speculated that it might have been a 'made up' vehicle. Well as it turns out - it wasn't...

In fact the car was an authentic design (though still may have been assembled by the film-makers on a modern chassis perhaps) and is in fact a c. 1904 vintage Austro-Daimler armoured car!

Austro-Daimler 4x4 four-wheel-drive Armoured Car (1904). Source: Wikipedia

"It was first demonstrated during manoeuvres of the Austrian army in 1906. It was turned down because Emperor Franz-Josef said it was unsuitable for military use since "it would frighten the horses"." [Source: The History Of The 4 Wheel Drive.]

So there you go. Not only a real vehicle but one that was very advanced for it's day. But's what's more interesting - for me - is that's it's development date is within the target date I have set for my Molatarian Army!

A possible scratch build do you think? :)