[rob love]

I could shed some light on each of these vehicles as I was involved in the either the restoration or donation (or both) on each of these trucks.

The first CMP is a Ford which I picked up East of Saskatoon to donate to the museum. It received a quick one week cosmetic restoration along with the addition of a few parts, and there she sits. I even managed to find a tool box/spare tire carrier for it. On the day of the opening ceremony for the museum, I was still piecing it together two hours before, and had just enough time to tow it down to the armouries and go home and get changed for the ceremony.

The second CMP is a Chevrolet 15cwt which was in possesion of the Saskatchewan military museum and was languishing unrestored in the compound in Saskatoon armoury. I suggested to the curator that he approach my ET (the base maintenance MWO) about having it restored as a shop project on a workorder. The ET agreed, and set a budget of $2000 for the project. It got all new brakes, seals, and a batch of parts from Brian Asbury including new guage panel and wiring harness. At that time, things like the marker lights and BO headlamps were still in the Canadian Forces supply system (mid 90s).
We put about 400 hours of labour into the truck, and presented it back to the museum on EME day 1995.

The third truck was a 3 ton cargo we found in the hills south of Swift Current. The van body had an interesting history. Around the same time period, one of the guys who was posted out to HQ&Sigs in Calgary called me up to say they had an old duece van body that the Brigade Commander used during excersices at one time, but they now wanted to dispose of it. The museum had no interest in a duece body, so I suggested to the ET that they bring it in for a smoke shack for the smokers to take their filthy habit to. I went on leave for a couple of weeks, and was very surprised to see the WW2 van body had shown up and was now occupied by the smokers. I was also a little disturbed when I found the butt can burning away one evening inside the body, and decided it should be saved. I arranged for a duece van body from the armouries in Regina to be traded for the Sigs body, and the sigs body was sent to the MJ armoury and sat into the back of the 3 ton where it now resides.
I believe the box is actually an American box, so although not an authentic combination, it still looks pretty good.

We put together a fair collection over the three year period I was involved with the museum. The nice thing about Moose Jaw is that the youth there do net seem as determined to destroy things as elsewhere. The first trucks I did for the museum I replaced all the windows with Lexan, but after the decade sitting out there in an unlocked outdoor setting, I don't think any of the glass has been smashed out of any of the trucks.

The vehicles we found for the museum were in exceptional shape as well. Normally rust free, and usually fairly unmodified, they proved to be easy candidates for restorations.