Lewis Garner

We have got his phone number but it's written down inside a folder in the back of our Spartan! If nobody else comes up with the goods I'll have a look tomorrow. Regards

As has been faintly mentioned before people's brains turn to jelly when they see an unusual vehicle on the roads. So many times when crossing roundabouts or even driving down main roads in the Spartan have we seen people 'slow down for a look', their attention isn't focused on the road or what they're doing at all. On small country roads it only seems responsible to pull over once in a while and let the traffic past, it is amazing what people will chance to get past a slow moving vehicle.

Seems a pretty novel way of ploughing

Thanks Andy, it'd give the old girl a bit more provenance to see it in action

33 BA 64 anyone? In nearly 10 years of owning her we've never seen an in service picture :-(

That's more like it

Great day, and thankfully the weather held out for us all, just! The arena demonstration was great, and Adrian's Sherman sounded absolutely fantastic! Lewis

If I remember correctly a few years ago some people on the circuit had converted their Stollies to LPG

Spartan with a 432 powerpack, at least it'll run on just about anything :-D

Not sure I'd want to do that sort of speed in a CVR(T), ours was bad enough at nearly 50! The speedo was showing roughly 48mph and it was just bouncing off the limiter. Then again if her majesty is paying for the repairs afterwards, who cares? It's when you have to fix it yourself and out of your own pocket that you drive a little more sedately

Similar sort of case with a Stolly in a nearby village. It sat on a farm rotting, still wearing all of its swim gear (including drive shafts), and had been outside for around 20 years. Every day I went past it on the bus to school, watching it deteriorate further. Found out who the owner was, and went and offered him good money for it. He absolutely refused to sell, despite the fact he hadn't used it for years. Eventually the farmer contacted him telling him to move it otherwise he would sort out its sale/removal, he got no reply, and unknown to me sold it off to a dealer. They brought along some batteries and fresh fuel and got it running, and after at least 5 years of not being started it 'ran like a sewing machine'. They took the beast away for far less than scrap prices, and I believe it was dismantled for parts....

Really interesting stuff, thanks for sharing. Any Scammell owners willing to go up there with a big tow rope?

They should've mentioned it in the advert then :-D

That looks WAY too overdone, as if a Jimmy would ever look like that in service .

Our Ferret probably does about 7-8mpg as mentioned, our GMC 353s used to get slightly better consumption at 10, possibly even 12mpg. Lovely truck, and gets you into WW2 events

Most of those rules are completely ridiculous, I passed my test in December 2010 and have to use part of the A1(M) to get to my apprenticeship every day. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The way things are going I can't see myself ever being allowed to drive the MVs on the road... :-(

Proof that even Russian kit breaks!

Welcome Matt :-D

What a wonderful celebration of all that is British too, the BBMF flypast was the highlight for me

A huge congratulations to you, I think we are all in awe of your fantastic work and I wish you a very successful run out with her, you deserve to be rewarded for your efforts as they are second to none. Regards, Lewis

A few more snaps of the day:

Hi Rich, The Shackleton looks great, the work has gone a long way. My apologies for having not made the effort to come up recently, I've been desperately trying to forge myself a career along with keeping up with the maintenance on our own vehicles :-D. Fingers crossed next month I can come up for the day, it'd be nice to come up on the friends gathering to see what it's all about. Regards, Lewis

He said he wants to leave the farm at about 8:30-8:45. That sounds great, what a way to spend your Sunday . The Spartan is now finished and test driven so bring on next weekend, I shall take along a couple of spare roadwheels and charge the battery up in the back so we can have the amber beacon going, not that anyone will fail to notice us driving towards them!

That is very good . We've had a few incidents on the farm as you'd expect, having a site literally a mile down the road. Amazingly rather than take the outer sheet tin off they actually hacked through a breeze block wall with an axe to get in, mowing down all the fences in the paddocks to get there. It seems so ridiculous that if you harm them in any way the police immediately turn their eye on you, hang on a minute, if they hadn't been breaking in, would they have been harmed?

Hi Big Cheese, The details are in Military Machines International and possibly Classic Military Vehicle, the road run itself has been reduced to about 8-10 miles and we believe the run is optional as all the vehicles will be arriving back at the high street anyway. Just turn up on the day, no booking in needed, and show off :-D. It'll be fine once it warms up Si :laugh: I managed to get the idler crank finished on the Spartan today, looking much better now. Just have to space the drive sprocket in by a couple of spacers and then we should be in business