Members Cars
Tony & Dorothy
This truck was bought for me by my wife in 1990 as a 50th birthday present. We were attending an auction at Cheltenham Racecourse for the purchase of Austin 7 spares when we spotted the Chevy. It was love at first sight so when the bidding started we found ourselves joining in, - 5 minutes later much to our surprise we stood there as the proud owners. My first thought was now how do I get this back to Kent? It was almost complete but with no body and unregistered I did manage to get it running but with the arrival of two heavy commercials which needed far more work the Chevy got pushed to the back of the queue.
It was 2004 before I finally started a rebuild in earnest. The first thing to be done was a total restoration of the cab using ash for the framing. The engine was removed, taken apart and rebuilt. A new radiator core had to be made and I relied on specialists for the rebuilding of starter, dynamo, carburettor and distributor along with some chassis welding.
A new period 8´6” flat body was made by old established coach builders “Ellis´s” of 5 Oak Green in Kent.
I brought the Chevy to Spain in October 2006 where I brush painted it using Tekaloid Paint also completed all the odd jobs and finally put it on the road in January 2008. It runs fairly well but does not like the hot weather, the cab gets extremely hot and it´s not a very comfortable ride.
Spares are readily available from the USA and technical details as follows:
Built in 1930 in Hendon, North London by General Motors from components sent from the USA. It is RHD and this model was produced for approximately 3 years and subsequently became the Bedford. The engine is a 6 cylinder OHV Unit of about 3 litres with a 4 speed crash gearbox with rod and cable brakes. Top speed in approximately 45mph but stopping can be fun!!
Posted by Webmaster2 on 2008-06-26
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