This article is part of a series of articles focusing on making surplus army trucks street-legal everywhere! Check out the whole series!
There is an entire arc of tactical trucks used by the U.S. military. When the army goes to the field, they take everything with them. Everything has to go, whether it’s an armor unit, mechanized infantry, or even a combat aviation brigade. Personnel, fuel, munitions, parts, and everything else. But what happens when the army trucks get stuck? Or worse yet, how about when a tactical vehicle (tank, armored car, armored personnel carrier, etc.) is damaged but not destroyed?
This falls squarely in the realm of a recovery vehicle. Here’s the really cool part: when an army tactical recovery vehicle has done its time in service, it becomes eligible for surplus sale. And that means that you can potentially buy a surplus army recovery vehicle. How? Let’s find out.
What Is a Recovery Vehicle?
So, the first question to answer is, what is a recovery vehicle?
Recovery vehicles are generally designed to recover stranded trucks, tanks, armored cars, or whatever else gets stuck in the mud or sand or gets partially blown up. No, fully blown-up vehicles are usually not recovered…
Considering the conditions where the army operates, these vehicles must be stout. Like, really stout.
How stout?
Well, an M1 Abrams main battle tank weighs in anywhere between 60 and 74 short tons, depending on the model in question.
A recovery vehicle has to be capable of getting out into the quest terrain in the world with a trailer and getting a stranded tank loaded up on the trailer. Then, it’s got to get back out of there and to a depot for repair.
What Are They Recovering?
Everything. If it went out into the field, it goes back to the garrison for repair and accountability.
They will recover anything and everything.
Every tank, every truck, every MRAP, everything.
So, how do they recover vehicles in all states of disrepair?
Well, for one, army recovery vehicles are loaded up with two or three enormous, rear-facing winches. For instance, the massive Oshkosh M1070 has two 55,000lb winches. These are used for loading immobilized vehicles onto the trailer.
Now, the M1070 is designed to transport the M1 main battle tank using the M1000 trailer. But that doesn’t mean it can’t (or hasn’t) been used for a lot of other things.
The M1070 is an 8x8 truck with eight single tires, two per axle, instead of the traditional singles in the front and duals in the rear. The two ratings aren’t exactly known, but it exceeds 70 tons since the latest iteration of the M1 is pushing 75 tons.
M1070s are a popular choice for anyone in the off-road recovery business. More than a couple of heavy-wrecking companies have purchased surplus M1070s for use in off-road towing and recovery. So has the logging industry, and closer to my home, a local electrical co-op uses these (and a slew of other surplus army trucks) to haul equipment and spools of electrical wire out to their more rugged job sites.
Where Can I Buy One?
I see a whole lot of used M35s, M939s, and some LMTVs on the Marketplace and Craigslist. These are mostly because they are the most commonly used trucks in the inventory, so there are more of them than anything else hitting the surplus markets, and they are usually pretty cheap.
"Gone Muddying" by 416thTEC is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.
The best place to look is GovPlanet since they hold a contract with the DLA to auction off surplus equipment. Now, this service is not vehicle-specific. GovPlanet auctions anything and everything you can think of. Airplane hardware and parts? ☑️. Leftover lots of uniforms? ☑️. Humvees, HEMMTs, & LMTVs? ☑️☑️☑️.
You might be waiting a while to find exactly what you want since you’re at the mercy of whatever is coming up for auction. There has yet to be a schedule for what goes live and when, and because GovPlanet is an auction platform, there is no set price, although once you make an account you can see what past lots have sold for to get an idea of what you could expect to pay in the future.
What Models Are Available?
Most of the time, the basic cargo models of the trucks are the easiest to find because they were used in the army more than anything else. Specialty trucks like wreckers, refuelers, and box van trucks are harder to come by but possible. If you’re out here buying a surplus military vehicle for off-road recovery, I bet bolting some winches and a flatbed onto a cargo truck to make it a wrecker won’t be a problem for you.
It works like this: tactical vehicles are kept on a central ledger and issued to units based on a standardized table distribution of allowances (TDA). So, when the same central planning agency within the army (or whatever branch of service) sees that they have been in service for their obligated period of time, they are pulled and culled from the inventory. This happens regardless of their miles, how well the individual machine operates, etc.
The guys ordering these trucks have probably never even seen a wrench, let alone turned one. They are professional bean counters. They send out the operational order; individual units must comply.
So, what does this mean to you?
"Palm Bay Fire Department Brush Truck" by pokemonprime is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Just about anything that rolls through the motor pool is eventually going to end up in one of three or four places:
Foreign military
Civilian agency use (Forest Service, Fire Departments, Police Departments, etc.)
Civilian surplus
And the crazy thing is that even some of the weapons platforms will still be sold in a demilitarized state! What this usually looks like, though, are support vehicles for Patriot missiles or HIMARS packages with all of the weapon-specific stuff removed. Sorry kids, you’re probably not getting a rocket launcher, even if you ask nicely.
But what you can get – and very likely will – is an overbuilt military recovery vehicle with extremely low miles and stunning maintenance history in pretty darn good shape.
Is it Legal For Civilians to Own One?
Absolutely. A common wrecker or cargo truck is generally fine as-is, and anything that had been used as a weapon platform is fully demilitarized before it is auctioned, so anything sensitive has been removed. If it cannot be removed for structural reasons (i.e., a tank turret with a cannon), a plug is welded on the barrel, and sometimes the breach is destroyed. Of course, you might want to do a little more than that before you start answering customer calls at your off-road recovery job. Or maybe not.
But beyond this, there are few restrictions to owning military surplus. Once it hits GovPlanet, it’s good to go for you to buy. For example, there are about ten MTV 6x6 trucks on the site, ready to buy at the time of writing this article. There are no guarantees about any particular make or model, and it is an auction, so be ready to fight for it if you want something that’s on there.
Can I Make a Military Recovery Vehicle Street Legal?
Generally speaking, absolutely! Especially any of the common vehicles like Humvees, FMTVs, and even military trailers (make sure to check out our writeup on surplus military trailers!).
Now, here’s the thing: they are not sold with a standard title. In fact, they aren’t sold with any title at all. Instead, you will receive a bill of sale, and an SF-97 if you want one. Having dealt with the military for two decades, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you spend the money on the SF-97. You want all the paperwork you can get on any item, and it makes getting street legal a whole lot easier, especially with a surplus army truck.
You will have the option for an SF-97 if you’re buying through GovPlanet, but private sales from Marketplace or Craigslist might not have one. That’s okay, there are still ways to get street legal even without an SF-97.
What's The Process?
Once you have the truck, you can mosey on over to Dirt Legal and check out our street legal military vehicle program. You pick the program, click a couple of buttons, and we handle it from there (once you have signed and returned all required paperwork in the included envelope).
It couldn’t really be much easier than that. And here’s the thing: you could do it in your home state, assuming your state allows it.
What am I talking about? We know of at least two states who will not title a surplus army truck with an on-road title or issue proof of registration. Those would be California and its first-cousin Colorado. If you live in one of these states, it’s not even an option. But that’s ok; when you title and tag your vehicle under a Montana LLC, the vehicle is owned by the LLC in the state of Montana, not you, the person living in Cali, Colorado, or wherever. It’s an important distinction we’ve fleshed out before and it’s a benefit we can provide for you as part of registering your military recovery vehicle as street-legal.
Parting Thoughts
We have come to that part of the program. If you would like to learn more about titling and registering surplus military vehicles, check out our collections of articles:
We aim to bring you the best information on the titling and tagging of military trucks, so whenever you’re ready to pull the trigger and buy one, or if you already have one, you can get them out of the shop onto the road, where they belong: street legal with the help of Dirt Legal.
John McCoy is a lifelong car and truck enthusiast and has a strong mechanical background off the road. He spent over 13 years in the U.S. Air Force as a crew chief, assigned to the B-1B Lancer, affectionately known as the Bone to those in the community, and the KC-135R Stratotanker. He resides on a small farm in Eastern Kansas where he (sometimes) enjoys fixing ancient farm equipment.