1940s E83W fitted with a thatched roof!
Adrian kindly posted me the original of this photo so that I could scan and return it. Some background information on this amazing Fordson:

"Photo enclosed of the Ford with thatched roof. It was owned by a Fred Davies who was a thatcher & used it as a show exhibit in the Hampshire area, my father had business with him. It must be 1947 or 1948, I was born early '44 and I reckon I look about 3 or 4 in the picture".

Thanks again for sending this photograph over, in the 1940s and 1950s many companies built strange bodywork onto the back of commercial vehicle chassis for advertising purposes. Examples that spring to mind include the toothpaste tube van (which I think Dinky did a model of, not a Ford though) and the Watneys Red Barrel E83W, that appears elsewhere on this site. I've also seen pictures of radio vans and similar based on the E83W chassis, if you have photos of this kind of thing, I'd love to feature them here too!

E83W sprouts wings - almost..
This photo has been on the site for a while, but I've moved it here as it was a bit lost before. Dad took this picture, sometime in the 1960s, when they went to recover an Avro Avian bi-plane from the basement of Lymm Grammar School. The van was rough already, and I'm sure having a fuselage parked on its roof will have done it few favours. This aircraft passed through the hands of a few aviation groups, and can now be seen restored at the aerospace museum in Manchester city centre.

Evening Mail vans
The remainder of the photos on this page, including the one above, were kindly sent over by Les, who has a huge collection of images showing older vehicles. Big thanks to him for sending these in! The photo must have been taken during the war, judging by the bumpers being painted white and the blackout masks fitted to the headlamps. The straight-down rear arches confirm the approximate age of this picture.

One E83W with ET6 lorries
A lineup of Thames vehicles - just one E83W to be seen, alongside some larger models.

Signwritten 5cwt and 10cwt vans
Les found this image in a long-forgotten catalogue produced by a signwriting company from years ago. The vehicles illustrated belong to a Chaseside Garage, the standard of the signwriting is top notch - how great would it be to see a restored van with some garage-inspired artwork like this on it!!

Please do not reproduce any item found on this website in any format, or hotlink directly to images hereon, thanks.