Great War truck

The Eagle has landed. Tim

Brilliant. I have walked up there and found that challenging. Must have been very interesting in a Jeep. Tim

Ahhh! Thought that would provoke a response. It is in private ownership and not all that far away from you. It is the one used in Michael Collins, which has a replica body (not as good as this one), but on another original Peerless chassis. That chassis sold in the UK in the early 90's and made its way across the sea. You can see film of it Youtube at the football stadium massacre.

I love it around there. This is St Mawes from the other side. Just down from Pendennis (and very close to the water) are the remains of these batterys: And another, partially dismantled. Swords into ploughshears (or is that picnic tables). I cant help but think that (assuming that the casements had roofs and more extensive sides) that the crews would get very wet in a storm.

Well done and all that. Please dont think that i was taking your wedding proposal flippantly. After twelve years of married life, thats how i deal with everything. All the best Tim

Surely you got that the wrong way round. Now what we would have said was: "Went into a antique centre and saw a interesting book in one of the cabinets, it was promptly purchased. The book is entitled "British Military Vehicles, Fighting Vehicles Research And Developement Establishment, Chertsey 1954" Nice book, a bit worn on the spine, paid £6 for it" Followed by "was in York this weekend (birthday treat for the girlfriend, who I proposed to last night, she said yes!!!!!!!! :sweat::yay::yay:)"

They have really done a great job on it and it looks fantastic. I must admit that i have known about this restoration for a while but was asked to keep quiet about it, until it was finished. The Irish Cavalry have a wonderful collection of MV's. These are not in a museum, just their own collection which they keep at the Curragh. They have a running RR A/C which was the one following Michael Collins when he got shot by the IRA. Missing from the collection is a Peerless A/C which is something they wished to remedy. A running Peerless chassis was purchased from P Savory (who was i believe the founder of the Muckleborough collection) many years ago. There was a lot wrong with it (including an incorrect chassis) and a lot missing so the project never really got started. A couple of years ago the Peerless project was looked at again and through a fellow HMVF member our name was passed on as Peerless owners. I met up with John who was overseeing the restoration and provided him with a manual, parts book and a pair of name plates. He went down to Bovington and acquired the manual for the armoured car and detailed measurements of the body. The problem still stood that they had an incorrect chassis, which might derail the whole project. However, a few Months before this started I had posted this picture on HMVF: which showed two Peerless chassis which were about to be scrapped. A couple of quick phonecalls, a deal was done (for less than the scrap value i hasten to add) and a truck came over from Ireland to take them back. Then it was just up to Johns team to do the work. What a great job i think they have done. Now, if we could only get all three Peerless armoured cars together for a photo opportunity that would be something. Tim

Which Lancaster was this? Where is it now? A Jeep for £30! This was in 1972, by when i had already decided i wanted a Jeep. It would have been a better investment than shares in British Leyland. Tim

Well that has to be Ron then. Which shows is he going to? Tim

That is a brilliant idea. Armortek turns out runs of only about 50 to 100 of each model and if they could make a realistic one I am sure they would be able to sell that many to re-enactors worldwide. With no need for turret, sound effects and firing weapon I am sure it would not be too expensive. I quite fancy one myself now. Tim

Yes, you are quite right. The chap in the front row second from left is Lord Saye and he was in charge of the signals for an armoured Btn. cant remember which one now.

I think that is the one that went to Overloon.

Here are photos of both types. The simpler curved scuttle: and the more difficult to make one with the rounded corners: I explained how we made the rounded corner scuttle in a previous post (some years ago). Steve came up with the method of making it (which i wont go into here just go back to the earlier part of the thread). Since then we have been able to study an original Dennis rounded scuttle and we can see that the original method of construction was very similar to the one that Steve devised. Tim

Here are some pictures from 1998 of the only restored Dennis subsidy lorry. It was a very long restoration and during the course of it someone stole the original water pump.

Tony has been keeping himself busy. The Oil Filler Plugs for the two rear hubs were missing and he has made these up and fitted them. They of course still have to be painted.

The casting of the mounting we were a bit worried about, due to the hole in it: The foundry said it was a very awkward shape to cast. However, looking at the original that we copied for a pattern you can see that there has to be a hole cut there anyway to access the gland: which was nice. So no problem there then and all very satisfying. The next lot of patterns are ready to go to the foundry, but we wont be able to get them cast for a couple of weeks.

We have the first three castings back from the foundry. Here we have the impeller: and the cover: Everything here seems to be fine, just needs a clean up. Very pleased with it all.

That is incredible. Where did you find that?

I remember a lot of harry Pounds stuff was brought up and sold there. Dont think it made very good prices. But at least it released some MV's on to the market. Tim

Yes. An excellent book.

I think it looks great. i would certainly have it as a daily run about. Not sure about the blue wheels though. A bit too Gallic? Tim

Tony has finished off the second universal coupling end cover:

Here is another Dennis photo. As you can see the lorry has suffered some damage. Saying that, the radiator and gear change still look to be in good condition. The engine can be just made out as well. I am sure that Steve could get it running again in an afternoon, if he could only find the back end. This wartime black and white photograph has been colourised by the very talented Chris Foster and used here with his permission. Thanks Chris. Tim

Thats a nice picture of a Lancia. One of 7 converted to run on the railway. Top speed of 45 mph forwards and 20 in reverse. Six of the seven were later converted back to run on the road. The axles were widened to run on the 5 foot 3" gauge of Irish railways. Thanks for posting that. Tim

Something that you might be able to help us with is locating as original steering wheel. Here are a couple of pictures of it. It has a 5/8" square hole in the middle, five spokes and is 18" in diameter. It should look a bit like this: