Ivor Ramsden

I see your mate (or whoever is driving it) is wearing the "101 smile". That's how I look when I drive ours. Enjoy!

It's the Arm of Service mark and denotes an Infantry Battalion in an Infantry Brigade Group. Is there any sign of another marking on the opposite wing or on the tailgate? If you can uncover it, it will tell you which Infantry Bde Group.

Judging by the Light Stone paint it served in the Middle East. I've got photos of vehicles numbered close to yours serving in Libya and Aden.

This might sound daft, but parking on a slope stops the water pooling! I used to do it with an early Series 1 Land Rover which had flat-topped hood sticks.

Thanks for that. I was struggling to find any photos because the car radiators seem to be of differing designs depending on the year. I was hoping somebody would come up with some pointers, and you have!

In 1915 the Isle of Man raised £450 to buy an ambulance for the front. It was a War Office body built on a Belgian Metallurgique chassis with accommodation for eight patients plus driver and attendant.

I'd very much like to find a picture of one of these to use in my forthcoming WW1 exhibition at the museum. Please can anybody point me to a picture or any other information about these vehicles?

And I should add that I've got no connection with Axholme Signs other than as a satisfied customer!

For stencils have a look on here under "Trader Classifieds". Tony at Axholme Signs is your man. :-)

I asked the question about the cost of restoration here: http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?43875-How-much-to-restore-a-bus&p=406100#post406100

I'm impressed at somebody's ability to put together a successful bid for that amount of funding for the restoration of a vehicle.

I'm not sure about the red fuel filler cap (I think that was post-war) and I don't think white-painted wheel nuts were that common on camouflaged vehicles in theatre although I've seen them in photos of UK-based vehicles. Here's evidence that they had red nuts in the desert.

Must have been caused by the sand, fnar fnar! Seriously though, not all vehicles had the wheel nuts painted. This is the only desert photo that I can find in our Manx Regiment collection that shows red-painted split-rim nuts. Most other photos show them in body colour.

It certainly looks like a 1949-early 1950 Land Rover, going by the way the front bumper is fixed to the chassis. The registration suggests that it was civil-registered much later than 1950 so the ex-WD description is probably right. Have a look under the bonnet and you should find its brass identity plate on the front face of the bulkhead on the passenger side. That will give you the chassis number (see below) and its Army registration number which will look something like 03BC54. The numbers will be different (unless I've made a lucky guess), but the letters will be BC or, just possibly, ZC. It might also have an Army rebuild plate on it somewhere - often under the bonnet on the passenger side front wing near the exhaust.

It would have had a spare wheel holder on the bonnet originally but this seems to be missing. This is most likely due to the bonnet having been replaced or the worst case scenario is that the vehicle's a ringer - a civilian L-R that's been given an ex-Army vehicle's identity. It's not very likely but it wouldn't be the first time, so have a good look for the identity plate. The chassis number is also stamped on the chassis. It's on the top of the left hand engine mounting bracket - the bit that's welded to the chassis, and it should be something like R0610xxxx for a 1950 model or R866xxxx for a '49.

It is certainly worth restoring, keeping as many of the original features as possible. The Series One Club forum is full of information.

The winch isn't original but it's a nice period piece. You could restore the 80 as a garage truck or sell the winch to finance some parts for it.

Go for it! 80s are the best Land Rovers ever made!

More pictures please!

.....The restoration is also on a tight timescale which will put pressure/risk on contractors - this too comes at a price.

Some good, if depressing, points there N.O.S., but the timescale was reasonable at the time when the funding was given. The article was published in April 2013.

I must live in a different financial world to some people. This reminds me of when we did a presentation about our museum to a new departmental chief exec in the Isle of Man Government. After explaining what we did with our volunteer force, we explained our finances to him. He pointed out that we'd missed a zero from our balance sheet. "No," I explained, "Our annual turnover really is £25,000." He simply couldn't believe that it was possible to achieve anything with such a sum.

I worked for 30 years in local government and IOM government so I really should have expected this.

I'm in the process of finding funds for the restoration of the museum's Morris CDSW Bofors Tractor. Whilst scouting around for ideas I found this article: http://www.1914.org/news/wartime-bus-to-be-restored-with-750000-lottery-grant/

Try as I might, I can't see how it is possible to spend three quarters of a million pounds on restoring what is in reality quite a basic vehicle which is still pretty much complete and original! This is the kind of money that's spent on restoring a Spitfire to airworthiness, starting with an identity plate.

I don't begrudge them the money and I'm sure the bus will look magnificent but, by heavens, I wish I had the imagination to come up with such an expensive scheme and succeed in getting such a massive amount of funding!

Eyup Bill,

I can't help with sand pattern tyres but if you have to go for normal treads you could try www.bigtyres.co.uk They list Petlas 10.50-16 x-plies at £206 + VAT. I've never dealt with them so I don't know them at all.

Argh! I can't stop scratching after seeing that!

Good on you, John, get in there before the sniping starts! You're doing a first rate job and I'm looking forward to receiving 142.

This was taken in August 1980 - no wonder it's taken me so long to find the box of slides, I've moved around a lot since those Polytechnic days!

Argh! That's been worth the wait! It's a C9/B too; I wonder if it's the same one that's in Les's picture in post no. 62?

Beware if using that plan because it may not be 1/76 scale. For some reason volume 6 of the Bellona Military Vehicle Data booklets (which it's from) had its plans printed at random scales. I used to use them a lot for scratchbuilding model trucks, and guess how I know they're not scaled right? Yep, I've got a 1/65th scale truck in my collection! I wondered at the time why the Airfix wheels that I was using didn't look big enough! I never questioned the scale until the model was ready for paint. In my copy the WOT6 plan is quite a bit bigger than 1/76 and I don't think they did a reprint of the booklet with them correctly scaled.

The wheelbase should be 48mm at 1/76 scale.

A fine truck, Sjoerd. I see it's marked as a vehicle of a Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment of an armoured division (73 on red/blue square). What Divisional marking is on the left-hand mudguard?

Your post had got me wondering about this so I've had a look at the 101 Club's records. The ambulances were built fairly late in the 101 production run (from October 1977) and were given xxGLxx registrations from new.

What you're looking for is on the 101 club website but it's a pig to find. If you go to www.101club.org and log in (you will have to sign up if you haven't already) There's a menu on the right hand side of the page headed Club Members Area. At the bottom of the list is Vehicle Register, where details of all the 101s can be found.

Navy Blue?

I don't think the stamping on the plate is anything to worry about. The few 101 plates I've looked at closely tend to look a bit scruffy. The plate on our 12V GS 101 is the original, judging by the several different coats of brush-applied NATO Green that had overlapped onto it, and it has a "hand stamped" look, albeit a bit tidier than yours. Even the abbreviated spelling of "control" is not unusual - I've got a Lightweight which is mis-stamped LDH instead of LHD. It happens.

All 101s, both 12V and 24V, were classed as GS vehicles unless fitted with Radio or Ambulance bodies, but the 24V ones were also identified as FFR. So no worries there, either.

Your vehicle was despatched out of the factory to the Army on 7th July 1975 along with 14 others and it's the 25th 24V LHD one built. Just where that fits in the overall build list, I'm not sure, but 7th July is the earliest date shown in the despatch book for a bulk delivery of 24V LHD. Deliveries before that date were just the prototypes and only a couple of production vehicles. Nice!

PS - the 101 Club is worth joining. They've got a very useful supply of spares. www.101club.org

Some images from the Tech Manual which might help.

This photo shows how the hand throttle is connected up under the bonnet. It's not too clear but if you've got all the bits it should give you an idea how they join up.

It's a year since I dismantled this Lightweight for restoration. I must get on with it!

Interesting stuff. Go for grey, it will be unique, at least until the National Transport Museum restore theirs. And then buy another which you can finish in the Caunter scheme. :cool2: