Late 1930s Ford

The truck of my boyhood was a 1936 Ford V8 van, which must have started life as a furniture van. Apart from the height (for bulky but not dense contents), there were walkways from the cab to the rear.
It was owned by my scout troop, and was driven by the group leader. It took us to outings and camps. My first ride was to Toolangi in ~1959. The truck stalled coming back up Croydon Hill (Maroondah Hwy, before widening). On one excursion to Essendon Airport, it was hit from behind by a car which I believe was an early 1950s single- or twin-spin Customline. The truck was undamaged, but the Ford suffered. The truck took us to innumerable camps, with all the gear piled in the back, and all the scouts sitting on a couple of benches or on the gear. No oh&s, just boys growing up with a sense of adventure. Into my middle teens, I was the regular passenger when we took loads of fundraising newspapers to Smorgon in Brooklyn. With that load, the main brakes (hydraulic?) weren't wonderful. I was on automatic cue to work the long lever handbrake, one of my earliest 'driving' experiences. Eventually the motor blew up on the way to a camp. A replacement was borrowed from an old Customline (thanks to Ford's standardisation of engines), but only to get the truck to the tip. It was replaced with a mid-size Austin panel van, which could barely handle the camping gear.

Allied to the Ford is the Fiat 500C owned by one of the leaders. That struck a chord, because my father had had the station wagon version from 1950 or 51 to 1962. It was small, but surprisingly advanced, and included a heater, and a radiator blind. When other cars were stopped by flooding in South Melbourne spoon gutters, my mother could drive home. The petrol tank was a gravity feed: on one occasion we did have to back up a steep climb to leave Anglesea beach.

See www.topolino.org.uk
and the wikipedia articles.

6412xx 1936FordV8-RSmith
6412xx Fiat500-FordV8-RSmith
700306F LabourDayCamp-RSmith


Roderick

RS, the Fords in NZ were well known for being a quick bit of gear. Howard Pettigrew (of Commer Connections fame) tells a great story of a fireman who was also a well-known racing driver (HP has all the details). When the Ford was getting on a bit it was relegated to second alarm. When its services were required as back-up it would go out and regularly made it to the incident before the more modern first alarm truck. Apparently it could be regularly seen sliding around corners on the way to an incident with said racing driver at the wheel.

Drop H a line at Commer Connections and he'll give you much better detail.

I found the earlier post:
www.hcvc.com.au/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1326234874/6#6
The model was identified there as 1936.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Hi Roderick,

I ran the rego of your fire truck and came up with the following stats -

Make: FORD
Model: 51
Year: 1936
Submodel: 221 V8 FIRE ENGINE
Main colour: Red
Vehicle type: Goods Van/Truck/Utility
Body style: Other Truck
No of seats: 2
CC rating: 3,628cc
Fuel type: Petrol
Assembly type: NZ Assembled/Built
Country of origin: New Zealand
Gross vehicle mass: 4,308kg
Tare weight: 3,040
No of axles: 2
Wheelbase: 3,965
Front axle group rating: 2,900
Rear axle group rating: 5,400

Just to note as well the odometer as at the last COF check was at 5365 miles - just been around the block a few times !!!