When Restorers hit the wall.

[S LATHERON (RIP)]

Hello all you other grey haired hoarders. I found this truck in 1980 in a corner of a stone barn used by a haulage contractor as his truck workshop. The owner proudly told me he was going to restore it before he retired. I guess he was in his early Sixties even then.
As i could not afford to pay a big price I said if you ever decide to sell I am interested and left it at that, Many years later I was chatting to a Truck sales man who used to be an operater of heavy trucks in the same area, Talking about who we both knew and about my hobby of rerstoring old Land rovers, I mentioned the Old barn and the restoration project that I had found there years ago. I was amazed to find that 15 years later the truck was still in same place. The owner of the barn had finally retired aged 76 and had been made a substantial offer for the land that the barn was on by a building development group wanting to put up a community centre.
The following week I got a phone call from the truck sales man saying if I still wanted to bid on the Project truck and any spares that the barn held then I needed to get over in next couple of weeks and make an offer.
As the Photo indoors shows it was worth saving.For those wondering, I did not restore the Project chassis as I would have had to buy an Engine, gearbox, and build a body.
I did source many of the parts that I needed but as stated in the earlier posts, Wrecks attract wrecks and a neighbour said, Theres one of those for sale up the road and guess what, I went, I saw I thought but only Briefly and I bought a bodied vehicle [a runner no less] It needed a cab rebuild as it was rusty in to many places, See Pic of Cab As i Reverse off Street .So the project vehicle became a Donor and it has since donated its Cab and Front bumper plus many other smaller parts to the benefit of my F60S LAAT. After I had finished taking the parts off it that I needed the Rolling chassis and another used cab have know found there way into another barn,
Maybe the new GH gentleman owner will one day want to sell those bits on for further use.