Earliest known British C30S

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

On going through my diskette of civilian registrations I have found a 'tractor' rego ERD 795, registered August 15 1950, serial number 1844101946. This was a # 11 Cab C30S and must have been to British contract S/M 2003, placed July-August 1940. Note how this very early British truck, delivered say December 1940 was demobbed so late!

Just realised that I have broken the 1000 posts barrier at last!

[Pete Ashby]

David

take a look at Steve Stone's non vented C30 11

Reg No 907 FUF

Pete

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Pete, I wonder if I have the serial #? It must be a S/M 2003 truck I think.

This is my complete list to date:

1844101946
1844102077 ENGINE # 2,814,290 S/M 2003!
1844102086 presumably S/M 2003
1844102307
1844102595 ENGINE # 2,814,685
1844102614
1844102813 in Norway
1844103127
1844103869 W.D. # L 4449597 British order S.M. 2003!
1844104074 ENGINE # [AR?]3,675,942 rebuilt to class 1 on 5-2-45 by Army Auxiliary Workshop No.B60}
1844104165?}
1844104167 ENGINE # [AR?]3,675,875} in Norway # 11 Cab S.M. 2003
1844104172
184410462x
1844105948
1844111641
1844111656
1844111689
1844113006 ‘WD # [CL] 4215220’
1844113768
1844115254
1844115260
1844115286
1844115294 ENGINE #’XR3538415’
1844116696
1844118200
1844118217
1844118251
1844118323
1844118325
1844118327
1844118330
1844118391
1844118818
1844120265
1844120267
1844148299


Engine number R3,747,383 BLOCK CAST DATE July 14 1941 L 4449560 S/M. 2003 8 in Australia # 11 Cab
around # 1844104500

1844102077
Engine 2814290
Model 84-41x2
Contract 2002
In Norway

[Pete Ashby]

Hi David

Unfortunately I know this truck does not have the original engine as I was instrumental in changing it for the current motor some 15 years ago when it was owned by some one else. There were also no plates on the truck either, there was how evidence of grey paint on top of the G3.

Do you know where the civilian reg comes from?

Pete

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by Pete Ashby
Do you know where the civilian reg comes from?

Pete,
The rego number on Steve's truck, 907 FUF is a Brighton number, BUT.......I am sure this was from a batch of unused numbers, some of the first age related that were issued in the late 70's era. There were many mv's at the time with FUF, just as later we had those ending with SU and SV, etc. If you check the V5 it should give the date the number was issued.

Richard

[Pete Ashby]

Thanks for the info Richard; this truck was indeed an early restoration.
The previous owner before Steve bought it from Kent I believe during the early 80's, it was restored to the standard of the day.

The truck ended up in our yard for some TLC after the block became frosted, an unforgivable offence in my book.

For various reasons the truck then remained in the corner of the yard under a sheet for the next five or six years until Steve came along and rescued it to undertake the complete nut and bolt restoration that has made it a Beltring prize winner several times over.

Pete

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by Pete Ashby

The previous owner before Steve bought it from Kent I believe during the early 80's, it was restored to the standard of the day.

....Steve came along and rescued it to undertake the complete nut and bolt restoration that has made it a Beltring prize winner several times over.

Pete,

I will have to look up my early photo albums to see if I can find it, just found a slightly later number which was on old Willis's Scammell Pioneer (from Weybridge), I'm sure you remember him?

Steve has done a great job on the Chev, we had the pleasure of a ride out in it at Beltring this year.

Richard

[Pete Ashby]

Richard

now there's a name from the past, as I recall no ginger Tom was safe........ remember ?


Do have a look at your pictures it would be good to fill in a bit more of the trucks history

Pete

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by Pete Ashby
Richard

now there's a name from the past, as I recall no ginger Tom was safe........ remember ?

Ha Ha Yes I get your drift.

Do you remember who in Kent owned Steve's Chev?

Richard

[Pete Ashby]

Richard

I never knew who owned it then. I think he came from Kent, it was certainly that neck of the woods.

Pete

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Serial # 0844001527 was registered in Southampton County Borough in January 1947, as a 'tractor'!. This is the earliest known C-GT to date.

[rob love]

During my posting in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, we recovered a very early Chev 2 wheel drive 15 cwt, which serial number ended with 00138. It had the key type ignition switch (which I still have somewhere in all my junk; no key unfortunately) and was, with a bit of a tune-up, a runner. The wooden box had been rebuilt over the years for more grain handling capability but fortunately, most of the metal fittings had been re-used on the new box. I believe this truck is in storage near Swift Current at present.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Serial # 0842100138 is the earliest known Chevrolet CMP! The next oldest # 0842100297 was a demobbed ex-British delivery but Canadian order. This rather proves that the C15 was the first production Chevrolet CMP series followed by C8 4 x 2, then C30S then C60S. It then went I think C-GT, C60L and then finally C15A and C8A. However it also appears that there were batches of production and the lines switched models as the contracts came in.

The C15 was possibly slightly pipped in deliveries to the 1st Canadian Division in England by the Ford F15s...50 of which went to France and were subsequently made POWs!

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by David_Hayward
# 0844001527 was registered in Southampton in January 1947, as a 'tractor'! This is the earliest known C15A to date.

David, is this a C15A? The 8440 code is for a C-GT chassis also. I know of two Chev Portees in New Zealand that are road registered as "Tractors" (Mainly because of the cheaper fees). They managed to do this by producing documentation describing the vehicle as a Chev Gun TRACTOR, saved heaps of money

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Tony, well spotted! I have a number-blindness problem at times and read say '08440' as '084440'. I have corrected the posting above and swapped C60L with C-GT in the production series.

It was in fact quite common for the former Gun Tractors to be registered as 'tractors' or 'agricultural tractors' because the real thing was unobtainable, and also there was a winch that could be used to tow the plough or whatever across the field.

As a result of the civilian regos that I am still wading through, I know that a 2-pounder Portee, although possibly converted by then to a G/S truck, was demobbed and sold on immediately post-war: Serial # 1844031840 ENGINE NUMBER XR3,742,962 and former WD # L459477! You never know with these old records...sometimes the census number is quoted as in this case, and sometimes just a corrupted serial or engine number.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Rego GDP 31 [Reading, Berkshire] Serial # 2844321800 'shovel'!!! 13/2/52 Agricultural Services Ltd.,Caversham

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Rego GJB 83 'ex WD' chassis Serial # 0844420869 was registered as a 69 cwt goods 12 January 1951! However. I think this must have been 1940 Model C60S # 0844200869...the serial number is too high for a 1940 Model C15A. Note an early # 11 Cab 1940 Model demobbed as late as 1950!

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Rego GRD 870 # 2844325078 a '72 cwt goods', actually a lime spreader was registered 31 January 1953!

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Rego GRX 209 had Canadian Census Number CZ4211924 and was registered 9 November 1951. The Engine # was # [TR] or [TRA] 2795061. This is a very early truck, and a Canadian order to boot, but demobbed in 1951 in England! This might set a record...anyone recognise the Census Number? Is it from a C8, C15 or C15A?

On reflection this may be a C15, but its importance is that it was one of the first Chevrolets assembled and as it ended up in England it was probably one of the first Southampton-assembled CMPs. We know that CZ 4204396 was an early F15... number CZ 4241710 was a 1941 MODEL C15 assembled in England in 1941 sometime.


I have found a photo that I thought I had lost of C15 Water Tank, with British tank body...CZ 4211882. I suggest that CZ 4211924 might have been from the same batch.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by David_Hayward
Rego GRX 209 had Canadian Census Number CZ4211924 and was registered 9 November 1951. The Engine # was # [TR] or [TRA] 2795061. This is a very early truck, and a Canadian order to boot, but demobbed in 1951 in England! This might set a record...anyone recognise the Census Number? Is it from a C8, C15 or C15A?

David,

I do not recognise that particular census number, but can verify two which are close to it. CZ4212147 and CZ4212158 were C15A trucks. seen on exercise in England.

Richard

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Richard, so far the earliest known C15A is #0844402987 ENGINE # TBA2,817,290. The engine number is earlier than a known C8 engine # and I suspect that the truck in question was therefore a C15 at the moment. It is a pity that the chassis/serial # was not quoted.

Pete, have you any decent photos of the early trucks that could be considered for a front cover please?

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

This is a pic of Cliff's F30 or F30S [don't know when the 'S' was dropped]. Note the lack of cab vents...I believe as she is in NZ that she was supplied to Contract S/M 2003 direct to the Middle East and then issued to the NZ Expeditionary Force, subsequently being 'sold' and shipped to NZ. It would have been a British order but send SKD from Windsor Plant direct to Alexandria. Similar early British Chevrolets though had round cab ventilators. I have a photo of a very early 1941 Model C15 to S/M 2002, built early September 1940 in Aussie that does not appear to have ventilators although they may have been 'filled in'.

[Keith Webb]

Originally posted by David_Hayward


This is a pic of Cliff's F30 or F30S [don't know when the 'S' was dropped]. Note the lack of cab vents...I believe as she is in NZ that she was supplied to Contract S/M 2003 direct to the Middle East and then issued to the NZ Expeditionary Force, subsequently being 'sold' and shipped to NZ. It would have been a British order but send SKD from Windsor Plant direct to Alexandria. Similar early British Chevrolets though had round cab ventilators. I have a photo of a very early 1941 Model C15 to S/M 2002, built early September 1940 in Aussie that does not appear to have ventilators although they may have been 'filled in'.

Hi David
What makes you say it's a F30? The 20" wheels would perhaps make it a F60S...

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Keith, as I am no expert on i.d. STILL, I rely on others, and in this case Cliff has suggested it it is a F30, but we may be wrong! I have to say that there is no evidence of any British-order F60S trucks with # 11 Cabs so far. If it is indeed a F60S then my theory goes out of the window! That is unless there was another series of vehicles supplied under BM/2V83.WS6(d) which I believed was placed in London with the Canadian High Commission to purchase Canadian-ordered trucks that were then shipped to the Mid-East. As the Census Listing merely refers to home numbers, not Mid-East -issued numbers, there could have been some F60S trucks supplied to the Middle East in addition to 1940/1941 Model Ford 4 x 2 trucks. Failing that then the suggestion is that this is a Canadian-order truck assembled in Southampton, and then sold off post-war and shipped to NZ. I have no evidence that the British supplied trucks to the AIF and NZEF in England when they were shipped out to the Mid-East from late 1940...in fact the evidence points to shipments made to Alexandria and then issued to the British, Australian, NZ and Indian forces after a short period.


I have reminded myself that there is a photo of a S/M 2003 Ford
Census Number L 4406114 in WHEELS & TRACKS # 49. Some of this order of 1500 had #12 Cabs.

[cliff]

I am not sure what it is. I said F30 to David but you could be right Keith because of the 20in wheels. My neice in NZ sent me pics of this truck about 6 months ago as she is still sitting in the same spot I left her in 20 years ago. There is also another no vent cab 11 there as well. From these photos I can see that the data plate is still on my old truck and could well be still on the other as the plates on the engine cover are still there.

My neice will be going out to them in the next fortnight to get this information for us and then the mistery will be solved I hope.

[cliff]

Here is my old truck now. I think it is still restorable for such a rare beast!

[cliff]

and this is it's mate. I have not seen this one in person and until I get the data plate info I do not know what it is apart from an early no vent #11 cab.

EDIT> it is a Ford as well. Found a pic of the dash and it has a Ford plate on it

[cliff]

Guys I am after your opinions on the possibility of me buying these two trucks and shipping them here to Queensland.

Is or would it be worth it?

thanks
Cliff

[Keith Webb]

Originally posted by cliff
Guys I am after your opinions on the possibility of me buying these two trucks and shipping them here to Queensland.

Is or would it be worth it?

thanks
Cliff

Hi Cliff
Looks like the NZ tinworm has been busy on them... If you were buying them for their wonderful heritage and nostalgia then of course it would be worth it. But if you're hoping to make an investment then I'd say probably not, even given their rare state. Another factor is their rarity and the lack of replacement cab sheet metal. If they were near-perfect barn finds it would be a different story...
Sorry to be a wet blanket.

[Bill Murray]

Uhhhh Cliff:

Keith is pulling an old scam on you so be careful. If you don't pursue them, he is on them like stink on a cowpie.
Beware of the friend with "good advice" especially when it comes to vintage military vehicles.
Bill