News From MILWEB's editorial desk

MILWEB's 50,000th Classified Advert is a winner!

When Dutch collector Rudi Pomme placed a dozen classified picture adverts in MILWEB on January 4th , he had no idea that one of those would be the 50,000th advert placed on MILWEB since we installed the new database 5 years ago.
When MILWEB’s publisher called Rudi and told him that he had won £100 to spend on books, manuals and DVD’s at the MILWEB Online Shop, he was truly delighted – and very surprised!

Rudi is no stranger to MILWEB having sold several vehicles and spares through the worlds busiest military collectors site in recent years.

Congratulations Rudi! And thanks to everyone else who has bought and sold through MILWEB’s other 49,999 adverts….. and of course the 33,500 people who use MILWEB each week.
Whoever places our 100,000th classified advert will receive something truly spectacular!

Carole Nash Launches specialist Military Vehicle Insurance

Milweb and other military vehicle enthusiasts have helped shape new insurance policies now being offered by one of the UK’s biggest insurance brokers.

Carole Nash, one of the UK’s top 40 brokers, has entered the military vehicle market pledging to repeat the success it achieved in the highly specialist motorcycle sector where it is market leader. And it says its new policies have been directly influenced by feedback from military vehicle owners themselves.

“Prior to launch we conducted research which included taking our draft proposals out to enthusiasts. Their feedback was instrumental in shaping the final scheme,” commented Carole Nash’s head of marketing, Rebecca Donohue. “The Milweb team was particularly helpful in calling strongly for decent multi-vehicle discounts which they argued enthusiasts were crying out for. They really pushed home the message that a significant proportion of enthusiasts own more than one vehicle and that our policies should reflect that.”

Donohue says that working closely with enthusiasts has been key to the company’s success in over the years. “Our motorcycle policies have been shaped, tweaked and launched in direct response to feedback from bikers’ clubs, groups and the people we meet at grassroots events. The same will be true with military vehicles as, like motorcycles, this is a specialist, enthusiast driven market that requires equally specialist and knowledgeable expertise. Classic bike enthusiasts might ring around for a quote for a Flying Squirrel and most brokers would think they were a bit mad and the same would be true for Ferrets.”

To ensure staff are up to speed Carole Nash has created a dedicated team which has undergone extensive training, including briefings from one of its own employees who co-owns an array of modern military machines based at the MOD’s Swynnerton Training Area, near Stoke.

More information on the Carole Nash Insurance Website

Red Tails Movie Props now on sale

MILWEB has been assisting the production from initial consultation and procurement of props and equipment and suitable suppliers and we were delighted to provide an appraisal service for vehicles and props being considered for the production. With attention to detail so imortant in all post Saving Private Ryan war films, we provided a valuable consultancy service to the Art Department.
Amongst MILWEB advertisers who supplied the production were Adrian Robins of Stencilade- providing stencils and ensuring the markings were correct, and David Westwood of MLRS Books who supplied a huge quantity of maps and aerial photos. Ken Lewis of Norman D Landing fame, provided invaluable authenticity assistance.
Based on a story written by Star Wars director George Lucas, 'Red Tails' is a fictional tale about the famous Tuskegee Airmen of World War II.
The movie follows the young pilots who have to overcome racism in the military to become the first African-American fighter pilots in U.S. military history.

They are currently filming in the Czech Republic and have a huge quantity of film props for sale for immediate disposal. This offers MILWEB buyers a truly unique opportunity to buy quality militaria and props direct from the film set, before the film is even finished.

You can buy the Red Tails Props here - but you will have to wait until the autumn to see the film!

Crisis – What Crisis? Not on MILWEB!

MILWEB is seeing a buoyant market with advertisers achieving excellent results – and fast.

Our Classified Adverts have seen some very quick results right across the board – from restoration projects to high value vehicles and items.

One military trader commented that selling is the easy bit – the challenge is to find the right vehicles to sell on – with less and less being released by the MoD. This means more and more older restorations are changing hands and this is giving the military collectors market a real boost.

Deactivated Weapons have proved an unrivalled success for MIWEB.
Since EBay and other sites decided to prohibit the sale of these items despite being totally legal to own, even more Deactivated Weapons have been advertised than ever on MILWEB – helped of course by our Number One Ranking for Deactivated Weapons - as well as Military Vehicles.

MILWEB’s publisher, Nigel Hay says "Hardly anyone now doesn’t have a digital camera so the vast majority of our adverts have pictures ensuring advertisers get a far better response. At £5 for a picture advert its incredible value – to be seen by over 33,500 buyers a week who use MILWEB.
The strong Euro means that a lot of buyers from the Eurozone are buying in the UK and we have seen our already high visitor traffic increase dramatically from Europe and the USA."

To see a selection of our advertisers comments - Click Here

 

Jacques Littlefield 1949 -2009

Jacques Mequet Littlefield, who assembled one of the largest private collections of military vehicles in the world and championed open space in the mid-Peninsula, has died in Portola Valley, California. He was 59 years old and had battled cancer for the past decade.

Jacques Littlefield began his fascination with armored vehicles in his childhood when he started building plastic models of tanks. While in college, he built his first scale model, radio-controlled tank. He acquired his first full-sized vehicle in 1975. In 1998 Jacques set up the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation to manage his collection of over one hundred fifty vehicles and restore new additions. The collection ranges from a World War II era U.S. Army M3A1 wheeled scout car, the first acquisition, to a Soviet-era mobile Scud Missile launcher, and includes such famous tanks as the U.S. Sherman and Patton class; U.K. Centurion, Conqueror and Chieftain; German WWII vehicles including a Panther; and Soviet-era Russian tanks. The complete inventory is available at www.milvehtechfound.com. Jacques was considered a scholar and expert on the history of armored warfare and the foundation helps serve the interests of authors, historians, educators, the defense industry, veterans groups, model makers and the entertainment industry. The collection is housed at Pony Tracks Ranch in the hills above Portola Valley, which the family acquired in the mid-1970s. Pony Tracks was the country estate of former San Francisco mayor and California governor James "Sunny Jim" Rolph, Jr. Over the years, Jacques restored many of the old buildings on the ranch, such as the stables, and acquired additional property helping to maintain open space in the hills above Portola Valley.

Jacques was the son of the late Edmund Wattis Littlefield and Jeannik Mequet Littlefield. He was born November 21, 1949 in San Francisco, California. His father was CEO of Utah International and served on many corporate boards during his career. He is survived by his mother, a strong supporter of the arts and a member of the Chairman’s Council of the San Francisco Opera; his brother, Edmund Littlefield, Jr.; and sister, Denise Littlefield Sobel.

Jacques also is survived by his wife, Sandy Montenegro Littlefield, and five children: David, Scott, Allison, Jacques Jr. and Jeannik, and one grandson, Kingsley.

Jacques grew up in Burlingame and attended Cate School in Carpinteria, California before studying at Stanford University where he received his Bachelor’s degree in 1971 and an MBA two years later. He worked for Hewlett Packard as a manufacturing engineer before focusing solely on building his museum and restoration facility.

Jacques served on the boards of the George S. Patton Museum in Fort Knox, Kentucky, the Cate School, the Coyote Point Museum for Environmental Education, the Hoover Institution, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Filoli Center. He was a member of the Bohemian Club and Captain of the Sempervirens camp.

We all offer our sincere condolences to Jacques' family.
(08/01/09)

 

MILWEB - Number One on GOOGLE

MILWEB is consistently number one out of 13 MILLION PAGES on Google for those searching for “Military Vehicles” and in the top 5 for many other military search terms.

MILWEB has its own dedicated server and our sophisticated visitor traffic analysis shows us the various search terms people use to find us. Thus we are able to tailor MILWEB to ensure its profile matches our visitors’ searches – and keep our profile so high in the search engines.

Please note that MILWEB's 31,500 plus visitors a week are GENUINE visitors, not hits or page views – that’s another reason MILWEB is so successful!

Classic Military Vehicle Magazine Special Subscription Offer from MILWEB

MILWEB readers can subscribe to Classic Military Vehicle Magazine at a special rate.
Every month Classic Military Vehicle brings you 80 full colour pages of the best and most detailed articles and features on both modern and historic military vehicles.

Edited by John Blackman, author and life long military vehicle collector, Classic Military Vehicle is the pre-eminent monthly magazine for all military vehicle enthusiasts. Contributors include the best known names in the military vehicle world. The monthly guide to military vehicle prices is compiled by MILWEB’s editor who also writes regular features.

MILWEB offers unlimited bandwidth hosting

We can now offer superb value Unlimited Bandwidth Web Hosting on MILWEB’s dedicated Unix servers.

This service, with unlimited bandwidth, includes fully backed up hosting on an Internet backbone, for speed, quality and reliability.
With total reliability, you can move your site to MILWEB Hosting with absolute confidence - using exactly the same high performance server specification as www.milweb.net uses. We welcome all market sectors including clubs and individuals.