christianV

Here's the post with all the information regarding the Dennis tipper. Thanks again to all those who helped finding all the info.

Heres' a few more of the Fordson taken yesterday. They'ere not very good cause it was a dark grey day but it gives all of you an idea of what it looks like today.

Hi everyone, A while ago i received somevcery valuable information concerning the possible past of our Denis tipper so i thought i'd let you know that due to my dad's old age ( don't tell him i said that ) and "mostly" because the lack of space , we are curently selling the few vehicles we still have . Vehicles are all functionning and in good state , the Fordson won a special price for restoration years ago at the Cinquantenaire and was also present in the 1994 tour of Holland's liberation festivities , the Katie is the brown belgian K2 that many of you probably crossed in Normandy or Arnhem , Amsterdam , Mons or Brussels . The K2 doesn't have her original tyres anymore, couldn't find any , but everything else is. The back heather is not working though. A new brake lining with restored brake cylinders was fiited in 2014 , as were new steering ball joints and new tyres . Her final voyage was to Arnhem in 2017 The WOT 6 has been restored to initial condition more than 10 years ago and has almost not been driving since. The Dennis is probably the least original vehicle althought we did try to keep it with the very little information we managed to find . The hydraulic tipper has been restored and works . If i remenber it correctly the wheels are GMC and there wasn't anything left from the cabin when we got it apart from 2 spars, a few plates and a door... We managed to get the correct shape but couldn't find any information anywhere as to what the cabin layout would have been . But since my dad had already restored quite a few british vehicles we respected the same kind of layout. This is probably one of the last survivors of an almost unknown WWII vehicle and we have never seen another in any meeting we attended. If anybody is interested , i mean realy interested in buying , all three of them are waiting near Brussels ( Close to the airport. That is EBBR Zaventem , not Charleroi ) and we'd be happy to organise a visit during weekends. I realy hope they'll find a confy home with someone to take care of them and maybe even keep them rolling ... For further information you can write to : christian.vermylen@gmail.com And let me end by wishing all of you a very fine 2019 and for a lot of us probably the last great Normandy meeting. Make it count !

After the success of the video taken from the parade in Port en Bessin i finally ( 20 years later ) decided to edit the tapes i still had from our trip to Normandy in 1994. The quality isn't the same but they are watchable though. This time there's all sorts of vehicles ( not just british ) but some of you might recognize a face / vehicle or two. It's in 3 parts ( the trip to Bayeux, the stay in Bayeux and around , the big parade in Bayeux on the 7 of june ). Links are here : part 1 : part2: part3 : .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcSCFi11KWY Regards Christian

Just for information , i found out today that the first picture i posted ( with the POW's) was taken in august 44 in Vernonnet (Normandy ) when the allies tried to cut off the germans from crossing the Seine.

Thats' quite an honour you had there. I have an enourmous respect for them but never know what to say to them. But i was really glad to see them around and really liked to see them talk to children, about what it was like. Passing on the message , seventy years later...

Runflat's post intrigued me, to say the least So i made a call to find out exactly what the previous owner knew and putting everything we know so far together ,this is the story of the little "pig". Most probably build in 1942 with WD n°L5219234 For service in 1943 our Dennis served bravely in Africa. After the war it was shipped with tons of other stuff to Marseilles where they were then loaded on a train to Brussels and finaly arrived in Sterrebeek at a military depot to be sold as surplus. A very wise coal merchant then bought it and used it for many many years untill there was not realy much left of it. Then a young man in his sixties found it and thought " ok,i can still do this , iv've seen worse " and took care of it. I should say intensive care here because what i remember is a pile of metal and ( luckily ) some wooden parts that would provide a way to recreate that intriguing bodywork. So, Alex where can i find a picture of the little Dennis in Egypt ? Anyway , just wanted to say this forum is amazing By the number of replies we had. By the quality of these replies. I thought people would go " a what ? , dennis tipper? " but i'm very glad to be proven wrong. Thanks again for all your help so far.

Thanks , another one to add to our collection .

I wish i had the means and the space for that ... Hope it finds a nice owner to take care of it - and to drive it around - and preferably on the continent - and maybe in Belgium

Yes, that is a very nice K5 and if we are talking about Austin's , the K3 is a piece of art as well. In fact i'd dare to say that all the Austin trucks from that era look nice. But then , so do the Bedfords, the Scammels, the Matador's ... :wow:

Those traffic jams around Arromanches were a nightmare , they had something going there just before the parade in port en Bessin but i was well adviced enough to avoid it (well most of it, i only lost 30 minutes)

That's another clever way to look , didn't thnk of that , thanks for the info

Thank you very much , that's impressive -and precise -information there , i will try the RAOC to narrow it down a bit but knowing it's probably 1942 already helps me a lot . I never thought those official records still existed, it must be like digging in a gold mine, wandering through those archives.

Thanks again for that extra piece of information Richard, the puzzle is slowly starting to take shape.

Thanks again for that extra piece of information Richard, the puzzle is slowly starting to take shape.

Sounds interesting but i wouldn't want to give him any false hope , we found ours in Belgium , so unless someone brought those rusty parts over to the continent and never even began any restoration on it i doubt it's the same truck. Would be nice though... I'll see if we can get any info on where the previous owner got it from.

Thanks Alex, NO, i didn't know any of these fantatstic pictures . Never immagined they existed , you don't know how happy i am , after hours and hours looking for something not even close to this. So now i know why Richard was talking about filling holes in Normandy... We always thought they were only used on the Home Front , and execpt for that pic with POW i never found anything involving them on the continent. As for Ursel i'm trying to convincee my dad to take it to Arnhem... But the fuel costs are so high ... The Austin , the Fordson and the Dennis together - for probably one last important anniversary that dad could attend to driving his own truck - now that would be something i'd like to be part of. But maybe Ursel is a more realistic goal . Ill let you know. Thanks again for the pics, dad's gonna love them.

For the ones who were in Port en Bessin on the seventh , there's a ( unfortunately very downsampled by Utube ) video of the parade. I went as a spectator to be sure to catch everything and i'm glad i did as the quality of the vehicles involved ( and uniforms - i think they should always go together ) was fantatstic. Couldn't resist to jump in our Katy and film a bit from in there at the end though :-) I remember Bayeux back in 94 and the unequaled impressive amount of WWI vehicles in the whole of Normandy during that week ( i also recall the weather ... ) like Sherman's and Stuart' on the supermaket parking lot and stuff like that. Gave you a feeling of traveling into time and what it must have been during war but, allthough we were in that parade with the Austin as wel ( right behind a Matador with a huge teddy bear in the back ) i do not recall having seen so many british vehicles 20 years ago as i did this year. And , yes , i fell in love with the K6 :-) Hers's the link :

For the ones who were in Port en Bessin on the seventh , there's a ( unfortunately very downsampled by Utube ) video of the parade. I went as a spectator to be sure to catch everything and i'm glad i did as the quality of the vehicles involved ( and uniforms - i think they should always go together ) was fantatstic. Couldn't resist to jump in our Katy and film a bit from in there at the end though :-) I remember Bayeux back in 94 and the unequaled impressive amount of WWI vehicles in the whole of Normandy during that week ( i also recall the weather ... ) like Sherman's and Stuart' on the supermaket parking lot and stuff like that. Gave you a feeling of traveling into time and what it must have been during war be i do not recall to have seen so many british vehicles 20 years ago as i did this year. And , yes , i fell in love with the K6 :-) Hers's the link :

Norway ? sounds cold :-) It was quite a show to see all three of them on that beach. I always liked that model.

Hi, I was wondering if someone had any more info on this type ( i posted a few pics in my introduction post but below are a few more ). W restored this from complete scrap to roadworthy ( and tipping ) with my dad ( he's the old man driving a belgian brown K2 ambulance around europe for the past 25 years ). This Dennis was something realy special we had never seen before ( and since i must say ) and i know it was called pig but i think it's rather funny and even cute in some way. Anyway it drove all right untill a screw from the air filter flew through the carb on our way back from a show leading to a massive BANG and me towing it all the way back with our all-round Katy. No valve was hurt though wich wasa real relief. The id plate is not clear , it was bashed in somewhere along the way and i'm not sure about the WD n° , it looks like it's a 7 figure one though , and a nice bloke in Port en Bessin ( driving the K5 ) told me that 7 figures is post 1942. So it's post 1942 but it definetely has a WD n° so it was in service during WWII but when was it made? , are there any signs that could give us a clue and where were they used ( except to fill the roads in Normandy ...). Below is a picture with captured POW's escorted by british soldiers ( although the uniform of the fist guard is unknown to me) in what seems to be northern France (the Ardennes by the looks of the hills and houses) or maybe Belgium or the Eiffel area. If you have any info i would appreciate it ( and maybe it would give my dad the final push to buying a tablet or computer :-))

One of the 3 scammels posing on the beach in Arromanches on the sixth ?

Thanks Paul, I guess the picture with the Ruston crane is the one i have but i can't find any with a Churchill. By the way i started a new thread about the Dennis hoping to gather more info on the type. If you ever get the chance to post that picture with the heavy ones going past i would be very grateful.

Thanks Richard , it's even less clear on the plate( the depth of the shodows on picture gives a better clue). And yes, it's probably a 2 but it might also be a 2 i guess.

Thanks guys , Nice forum you have here by the way Would love to see those pics from he Dennis tipper... Here's ( if i'm doing this right ) some pics i found on the web and some pics of our own. Number on the truck is not right though, this may sound stupid but i've just recently discovered that the WD n° on the ID plate is the one you're suposed to use on the outside as well. We used numbers we found in magasines to mark our K2 and WOT 6 as well. Guess that's going to change now :-) We've been restoring vehicle for the pleasure of driving them and never bothered for markings or so... On the ID plat of our Dennis the WD was smashed in so not sure if it's a 6 or 7 figures number. And.. yes we are gonna add that star on the side too