M151 is one of the Light Utility Vehicles are classified in class "1 / 4 ton 4x4 Military Utility Tactical Truck (Mutt)". M151 was designed by Ford Motor Company since 1951, under the guidance of the U.S. Army's Ordnance Truck Automotive Command. M151 will be used instead of the Jeep M38 and M38A1 Jeep.
M151 design retains the basic layout of its predecessor vehicle (M38), but no longer use the steel body (steel tub) are superimposed (bolted) to the upper chassis (separate steel frame). Instead, M151 uses monocoque design, which is box frame structure formed of sheet steel. This new design eliminates the use of "separate frame", so it can provide several advantages, namely:
- Adding ground clearance
- Lowering the center of gravity
- With the raletively same body weight, M151 has a greater dimension cabin space than any other Jeep products.
Another renewal is the use of independent suspension with coil spring, in lieu of suspension model of rigid live axle which is used on all military jeep. However, the rigid live axle will still be used in a long time, even on the last production like Jeep Jeep CJ and Wrangler.
With the combination of independent suspension and a spiral spring, M151 is expected to be more agile, improve power cruising (cross-country travel) and remained stable at high speeds. Plus, it becomes more comfortable car to drive. To ensure reliability, the United States Department of Defense tested the prototype M151 is quite long. New in 1959, this car can go into the production line at Ford's factory. But there is one important thing that escaped the attention of the United States Department of Defense, this car was never tried on the highway.
There are many cases of accidents involving the M151, the cause is the tendency to be easily rolled (rollover). The suspension is independent models are often blamed as the cause. At high speed and without charge, M151 rear suspension does not work perfectly, ultimately tend to make the car skidded and overturned. To overcome this, an experienced driver who has always slipped ammunition box filled with sand under the back seat, as a weight. Based on the investigation, other than suspension is less than perfect, the human factor plays quite well mainly because of unreadiness to adopt new technologies.
As a result of this track record, M151 is considered as a car that does not meet Federal highway safety standards for civilian purposes. And the United States Department of Defense decided to not sell the M151 to the civilian. This condition has never happened in any other military vehicle products.
To reduce the risk, the U.S. Defense Department to take corrective measures as follows:
- Ask for Ford to redesign the rear suspension. The results are directly applied to the M151 A2 series.
- The U.S.
Although the suspension has been improved, the United States Department of Defense is still worried and finally still restrict the use of M151 to the public. For M151A2 products, in addition to Ford, production contracts are also awarded to Kaiser Jeep and AM General Corp., but not allowed to use the seven-slot vertical grille that are characteristic of the Jeep product, because infringe copyrights and brands of Commerce.
The use of M151 officially by the United States Department of Defense conducted the Vietnam War, Korean War and continued until 1980, before being replaced with a Humvee. But specific to the variant M151 FAV (Fast Attack Vehicle) still used by the Marine Corps until 1999, because it is considered to have high flexibility to be taken by using a C-130 cargo plane or CH-53 heavy transport helicopter, like the war in Kosovo.
As a military vehicle, M151 is used by more than 100 countries.Remarkably, only used by 15 countries who are members of NATO such as Canada , Denmark , Lebanon , Israel , the Philippines and the United Kingdom Pakistan
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