Posted by Vintage Power Wagons from 216.51.184.51 (iatelecom-04-051.dsl.iowatelecom.net) on Thursday, March 21, 2002 at 10:49AM :
In Reply to: questions posted by Galen from 65.216.181.197 (user197.usigs.com) on Thursday, March 21, 2002 at 10:11AM :
Its not that the frames could not be exported, the problem is more that the chassis is valuable if it has a registration or title. Its not like here in the US where anyone can build anything or any combination they want to. Plans have to be submitted and nothing with lefthand drive is allowed on the highway. Even the flathead 6 there is useless because it does not meet pollution control standards. I saw a couple of nice vehicles and have some pictures of them that belonged to an off road safari place. They had numerous land rovers but had a few of the Dodges that were really popular. They had converted them to right hand drive using
landrover steering components and had toyota diesels and 4 spds from the landcruiser. Quite a combination, but nicely done. Choosing the trucks took a while, but my main focus was on good sheet metal. The majority of the trucks had engines locked up from sitting for so many years, so went through first and coded the vehicles on the cowls as to which ones had free engines. I would guess 1/2 of the vehicles we brought in have free engines, while the others are stuck. As everyone knows the sheet metal is what's important when purchasing the truck.
Some have small components such as a headlight, maybe a bumper missing, but will be included with the truck. Some of the ambulances had some rust on the bottom of the rear doors, but we parted out enough that we have some good extra doors which will be included with the complete unit. Interesting how the M615 bodies were assembled with pop rivets and spot welds.
Hard to say if there will be more that come out anywhere, but don't think anyone will see more out of this batch. As I mentioned before we picked out the cleanest units we could find and left behind the ones that were beat during the moving process.
Dave