What is this vehicle

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

I looked at one of those utes during a Corowa event years ago. The little town between Corowa and Albury , NSW side of the river. The chap wasn't home but he had a junk yard with lots of stuff . He was selling a 1 ton army Ford 01Y but he had the coupe ute in the yard. The coupe ute was restorable but needed a lot of work.

I bet that was the yard at Howlong, remember going there a few years back, place was full of vehicles of all ages. There was no one home then, his mailbox was overflowing !

[David Dunlop]

Those rear fenders look like they have a proper rolled outer edge finish. Would that type of work have been bothered with in the field, or could those fenders have been taken from a different model Ford with the same wheel well radius?

Cute as a bug, either way!

David

[Lang]

David

Those workshops had lots of people with very high skill levels from their former civilian lives. Body builders would have been among them. As anyone with military service knows, no matter how hectic the work, there is always time for interesting "foreign" orders.

Probably some keen young officer suggested it or complained about getting bogged all the time and the workshop blokes took the baton and ran with it.

Quite possibly a few cartons of beer fell out of the back of a truck near the workshop.

Lang

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Richard Farrant

I bet that was the yard at Howlong, remember going there a few years back, place was full of vehicles of all ages. There was no one home then, his mailbox was overflowing !

Yes that would be the place for sure. I remember the ute in question had a rusted out floor pan. I rang the hot rod business in Castlemaine , they made new Ford panels for the 1930's , 40's cars . The chap said yes, they have a new floor pan for that ute ... rather expensive project so I left it.

[Mike K]

56623 appears to be a 1938 model ?

70563 116552 is a scene at Corowa airport !

[Mike K]

Hmmm MOVEMENT CONTROL ! Has had a big prang

[Mike Cecil]

Movement Un-controlled has a three tone cammo .... no, I am not going to hazard a guess as to the colours!!

The Corowa a/port images have an Erg standing on the roof to fill that whatever it is on the Beaufort. No wonder the roof is always dinged-in!

I had a 11Y with a sunshine cab that went to Dinger Belfield, who finished it quite nicely. That model had 900-16 tyres and a quick diff so should have motored along well. An ex-1Div vehicle which still had some original markings.

Mike

[Lang]

Mike

I think the Air Force description is "erk" which is a corruption of the private-equivalent rank of Aircraftsman (Ac)

A RAF Slang list notes it as: Erk (or Irk) - Aircraftman (from cockney erkraft)

Lang

[Mike Cecil]

Thanks Lang, for the correction - I'd always known it as 'erg' as that was what my father always referred to he and his fellow RAAF engines & airframes fitters' as. He was an RAAF LAC during '44-45.

He's long gone, so I can't ask him to see if it was his mispronunciation or my bad hearing as the cause of the error (probably both!)

More importantly, what is that thing slung under the wing that the bloke on the roof of the ute seems to be filling?

Mike