A truckload of rifles? Why do I suddenly imagine a young but old looking Clint Eastwood driving these beasts to Verdun with a bunch of raw recruits and/or grizzled combat veterans? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the truck in question is the fabled “deuce and a half” (a.k.a. M35 2.5 ton cargo truck) dating back to 1951. Imaginary historical inaccuracy aside, you gotta credit ArmaLite CEO Mark Westrom’s marketing mavens for making a drama out of crate load (or something like that): buy enough guns and we’ll throw in the truck for free. Tom Trenez did the deal. So how long will it take the proprietor of The Rhine Group in Ankeny, Iowa to sell 168 ArmaLite rifles, roughly a third of which are tan $3k-plus Semi-Automatic Sniper System AR-10s? “I have no idea,” the French-born gun dealer tells TTAG. Oh kay. The truck arrived last night and the man’s sold one. So that’s a start. What the deuce will he do with the Deuce?
“I’ll probably sell it,” Trenez says. Asking price? “I dunno,” the laid-back entrepreneur says. “Around six thousand dollars.” Of course, if you want to make an offer on the truck and a gun or two, Trenez is “always willing to negotiate.” (Ditto ArmaLite methinks, given that Westrom owns around 30 of them). Trenez recommends the rifle part of the program highly. “I own more than one. They’re very accurate, well-made. People like them a lot.”
