Rootes75

She is a Q2 15cwt with the 6 cylinder petrol not the 4 cylinder.

Some very nice photos there, thank you.

And no, she will definately not be painted grey, I've researched quite a lot into colours. Of note, our 1942 Commer I have in SCC2 as she would have been originally. I tell you, the number of people who have messaged me to tell me that she should be olive drab and I have it wrong...

And yes, we believe she was part of 2TAF shipped over to NW Europe in later 1944. She was sold off locally in France in early July 45.

12 hours ago, LarryH57 said:

From the look of it , your Commer does look to be one of these, in the photo of the factory line up, (below) rather than the van type? However, I think those in the line up are Q15 models but according to Bart Vanderveen the Commer Q2, was sometimes produced with a closed cab like yours (rather than an intergral cab) and these were made for GS and specialist bodies like the aircraft engine pre-heater.

Factory Line up of Commer Q15 vehicles?

The Commer with Type E radio body, may be trial fitting of a body that looks similar to those on Bedford MW, with wheel arches bigger than necessary, presuably to cater to all sorts of vehicles and wheelbases. Note the cab roof with its look out / MG position.

 

Yes, that is a line up of fresh Q15's. Actually quite a bit smaller than the Q2, narrower track and very short wheelbase. I think our thoughts at the moment are to body the Q2 the same as our 1942 Q2 30cwt with the GS body and canvas tilt.

Its not a coachbuilt cab, it doesn't have a PTO for it to be a heater truck. It does however have a gun hoop in the cab and gun racks inside and also a lubrication chart plate that we can make out says 'Commer Q2 AM 15cwt Load Carrier'...

We are thinking it would have the GS body fitted?

Reading through this thread for the first time, we are restoring a 1944 Commer 15cwt RAF truck, I'd be interested in a copy of the list if that were possible?

I have a contract number for the truck but she is just a chassis cab so I have no idea what the RAF use was. She was sold off in France in 1946 and we've only just re-patriated her.

That is some really impressive work.

One other major find today though was the chassis plate in the cab that was completely unreadable due to rust and muck etc...well after an hour or two of extremely delicate cleaning we have managed to read all of the writing on it...

Biggest surprise is that it gives the Contract Number (the plate on our 1942 Commer does not)...

So we can at least date the lorry to it's Contract, the contract being issued May 1944.

Well, this morning we have had a really good look round and explore of the Commer. She definitely isn't a pre Heater Truck. No pto driven belts.

We were confused as she has a compressor fitted on the side of the gearbox, that's what initially made us wonder about the heater truck possibility. But she isn't. 

I have had a good look through all my later war Q4 3 tonner manuals and have found the compressor is actually a tyre pump compressor, it's only in my manuals from 1944 onwards, that's why we didn't recognise the set up.

Just a couple more photos..

The plate you can see on the back of the cab are backing plates for gun racks fitted in the cab.

She looks better on the outside. The lower 2 to 3 inches of the cab and lower 4 to 5 inches of the inner doors are pretty much shot. Both bonnet sides need sections re-fabricated as does the grill surround. Internally the windscreen frames are rusted through so will also need re-fabricating.

I find my work pc has no issues at all, no adverts. 

If I use my phone even with an adblocker its pretty dire tbh. 

So I simply don't tend to bother with using the phone to look at the forum.

So, cutting a very long story short. After 7 months of negotiating and red tape and transport issues we have managed to buy and import (From France via Holland) another Commer to our collection. We have already restored a 1942 Commer Q2 30cwt but once we were pointed in the direction of this one we pulled out all the stops to save her and bring her back to the UK.

She's a 1944/5 Commer Q2 6 cylinder 15cwt AM Load Carrier (Q2).

She is in a pretty poor state, the engine is seized, she requires welding to most panels and she will obviously need a body to be built and a full chassis up restoration. But, most importantly, she is saved and being such a rare truck its important that we restore her back to her original guise.

There are a lot of different features on this truck compared to our earlier model so although both Q2's and only a couple years apart they are very different.

9 minutes ago, 67burwood said:

Doris my Fordson wot6

Bernard the Matador 

and the GPW with no name 🤔
 

It's funny with naming our vehicles...a couple of our cars have names but none of the lorries...but, strangely my Wife said this morning out of the blue 'I wonder if the kids should name the lorries?'...

This is our 1942 Commer Q2...30cwt GS bodied truck. Restored by us over the last 3-4 years...Still with a few small finishing jobs required for this year's show season.

We have a couple of our trucks booked in for White Horse. That should be a good show this year.

We attend quite a few events in the Southwest, was wondering if you get over the bridge to any shows?

Personally I find the military vehicle enthusiasts a pretty good bunch, at any of the shows we attend.

We have vintage cars too and that's a very clique group...very different people in general..in our opinion..

Out of interest, how did you get on with the project? Would be interested to see which vehicles were used.

Welcome aboard. Which area of the country are you based, there's always a good spread of military shows nationwide.

Out of interest are you part of a unit for reenactment?

12 hours ago, ruxy said:

I would agree  -  Facebook has taken over and it's not difficult to determine the reason(s) why ,  however FB is not without problems - there are many groups , for in example military vehicles - for just a specific make/type of vehicle , somebody starts a interesting thread and rude people bust in and take over with another query or answer / suggestion not relevent  (moderation seems very poor).  FB  -  it's useless for a long restoration blog.   IMHO  the  HMVF still has it's head above water , mainly for the reason it is a forum covering many types of vehicle - so the pull-in for readers / commentards has a greater head count , they may come for their specific vehicle interest - but read about others and further educate themselves.

I'm on a few FB groups too, its another good source of information. But, I feel on FB there are a lot of armchair experts who can quite easily offend. When we finished our truck last summer some photos of it were posted on FB, not by us but it was nice to get he exposure.

Trouble is, then we started getting comments about how we'd done this wrong, painted it the wrong colour, something didn't look right etc etc

At the time it really got under my skin, after all our hard work to be sort of ripped apart, quite cynically tbh. 

Whereas on the Forum, people have followed my restoration blog, really helped me at times where I've had decisions to make, made good comments and gave good advice that has really helped. I've also closely followed other restorations which have given great insights into things I didn't really see before.

I think that's the difference.

Over the years I've made some very good friends on the forum, albeit never meeting in person. I check in quite often each day to see what's going on. Some days I just hit some likes, others I may comment. But sometimes its just reading. I have noticed fewer posts from some people but there may be quite a few just happy to read without comment.

Whereabouts in the UK?

I think that's good advise. Take your time, take a look at the market, choose a type or manufacturer you prefer and bide your time until something ticks your boxes?

Yes, I do agree. There seems to be a lot more to this going on behind the scenes...

Tiny aviation museum in Cumbria comes to the rescue of the world's last Beverley Blackburn made in Yorkshire (msn.com)