1958 FORD LIGHT VAN | MATHEWSONS CLASSIC CARS | 20 & 21 MAY 2022 📖 Full Catalogue: www.mathewsons.co.uk/upcoming... 🖥️ Register to Bid Online: cutt.ly/mathewsons-register
I know I'm a little biased because this is my van but what a brilliant video. It's great to see Derek speak so passionately and I'm over the moon with his review.
My dad bought one of these about 1960 and fitted an old bus seat in the back. Four of us went camping each year for two weeks in it. Where did we put everything? Happy days.
Saw this van out back of Thornton site yesterday. Derek was out front and said a few words to us. Great guy and a great place. Watch out for the vehicle rebuilds shows from them coming up soon.
Dad bought one for business in 1960 in grey primer liked the colour and painted it with clear Valspar varnish used to go to South of France in it with cushions in the back 😀
Goodness, this takes me back! I had a faded maroon one of these, back in 1964-5. It ended up being hand-painted in Air Force grey and Crash-Crew red. Replaced the very uncomfortable seats with blue/white cloth reclining seats out of a wrecked Skoda Octavia; much better. Five RAF blankets and a couple of pillows made it quite comfortable in the back!
Your story about replacing engines on a regualr basis from a brakers for a tenner must have been an experience for many owners. My Dad had the Ford Popular saloon. We lived in Croydon and had our one week's annual holiday in Bournemouth. My Dad would run the car for a year by which time the engine was blowing blue smoke and was knackered. Just before the car became completely buggered he would use it to take us all on holiday. Once over the Hog's Back and on to the New Forest the car would be limping along at barely 40mph. We would only just make it and the next day, Dad and my uncle John would visit the local braker, part with £25 for a recon engine, get the old one out and fit the new one in a day. We would then be pretty guaranteed no major motoring issues for another year.
My dad had a Ford Thames van, same as this I think, we went all round Scotland in it for a week, then down to Southsea year after. He also used it to get to work, and it was a great tool.
Derek is right, as always! I bought a 100E which was parked up with a seized engine in land next to Gas Street Canal Basin in Birmingham. We towed it home the rope broke going through the Queensway Tunnels to add to the excitement. As Derek said £10 for a secondhand engine and we got 12 months driving out of it. Great to see him so enthusiastic
Yep took me back to my 100E van, 1956 SBY 734 but l outed the vacuum tank for hillman minx electric wipers, and changed the small window rear doors for the larger version, steering extremely light when fully loaded . But lovely shape.
The famous Shove it engines.30 000 and they were knackered.I remember them well.As he said kids dont know they are born now.Cars are so reliable no one lifts the bonnet anymore.
My mom keeps telling me the story about when my grandad owned a Ford Thames version of this van and because it was the era of no nanny state he fitted a old bus seat in the back and they used it as a family car. I remember my dad did similar in the early 1990's with a bus seat in the back of his LDV van (very noisy if you were a passenger in the back).
I owned several 100Es back in the day, in fact I still have a fully rebuilt engine and a new old stock gearbox in the garage. I didn't find them to to be a poor engine to be honest. They were quite torquey, outperforming the awful small engined Series 2 minor and A30s by a country mile. I do wish they'd put a 4 speed box in them though, that gap between second and top was pretty hard to live with in a hilly area. I did put a 105E motor and box in a 100E, but it was a big job, requiring significant firewall mods. and mount fabrication.
My first car was a 100E Anglia, it was dreadful. Slow, uncomfortable, awful engine & awful crunchy gearbox. It burned more oil than petrol. Got rid of it and then had a two tone Hillman Minx series 111C which was a dream by comparison. Sweet styling, aluminium radiator grille, great engine and four on the floor synchromesh gearbox which was smooth as anything. Beautiful dashboard with Smiths instruments. Prefer Rootes cars over Fords of the era all day long.
A sweety...the body was a really neat job on this design...pity Ford scrooged on the mechanicals (basically a 1932 engine and drivetrain.) Having no reason to be nostalgic for vacuum wipers, piddly brakes and sidebangers I would bring this up to Escort specification double quick!
Fabulous little van I’d absolutely love it anybody know what it’s kinda worth ish ? I don’t have a clue . I’d have a pinto in that in no time and drive the tyres off it cool van cool story to , I fancy a turkey sandwich now 🤣
Half the video was a story about turkeys and the other half was about taking his driving test. Shame they didn't spend the time scrutinising the van.....
To Nicky Boy. I THOUGHT he said something about TURKEYS! But even that story can't beat the one my park patrol supervisor told ME. NOT about TURKEYS in the back! He would come round the parks in Epsom, where I was a Park-keeper on a security check, to see if everything was alright. In A Suzuki Jeep van - and then go on to Epsom Downs afterwards. He said that after he finished work, his kids loved him to take THEM up on the Downs, in the Suzuki Van , for a picnic. So, instead of TURKEYS, of course, THEY took SANDWICHES in the back. My parks supervisor DID mention that occasionally the van got used for something else. Going up on the Downs to remove the bodies of occasional suicide victims, in a plastic bag. So I turned to the supervisor and said : "But Stan - you removed bodies in the back of your van? Isn't that where your kids put THEIR SANDWICHES, when you took them for picnics? (!)
