Tony and Rene Kennedy's Series I.
For as long as I can remember, I have had an interest in vehicle restoration.
My dad has been a mechanic and had owned his own garage ever since I was born.
I grew up with a spanner in one hand and an oily rag in the other.
Over the years my own interest in mechanics grew.
Helping out in my dad’s garage in the summer holidays, I learnt the basics and longed for the day I could drive and start to tinker with the mechanics of it.
When I left school everything went a bit wrong … instead of working for my dad I ended up working at a local manor house as a gardener.
Not the first choice of job, but as I found out if you want something in life you've got to work for it, and for me it was the nearest job available.
It's a ‘downside to living in the countryside’.
Many more years came and went as did the cars I owned, but there was still this burning desire to restore my own vehicle, any vehicle.
There was always a lack of money at the wrong time, in fact there was always a lack of money, but tons of advice from my dad on how to spend what little money I had.
However some ten years later I found myself with a wife two children, a good job and 700 miles from all that good advice.
In the summer of 2006 a work colleague mentioned that he had seen an old Land Rover sitting in a bush while he was marshalling for the snowman rally on the Black Isles.
24 hours later, with butterflies in my stomach, he was driving me the 30 odd miles to have a look.
‘Don’t blink or you’ll miss it he said’ as we drove past a bush and by god he was right.
Tucked up in a bush on a high verge was an old series one truck cab tilt.
Love at fist sight I think would be the best way to describe that moment.
The land that the land rover was sitting on belonged to a garage, and it didn’t take long to find out who it belonged to.
The owner of the garage - ‘Charlie’ was a Scot with a strong Scottish accent.
Now with me being Englishman from the south coast and Charlie having such a strong accent, we found our first problem, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying at first.
The next hour was filled with lots of pointing grunting, erming and umming.
Unfortunately that day there was to be no deal as he was unsure if he wanted to sell her, but promised to think about it and phone me with an answer in the next day or two.
My, how those two days dragged and dragged.
In the end, I decided to take the wife and kids through to see the series one.
Fortunately it was still there, which I was later to find out to be no surprise and Charlie too was there, great time to use my secret weapon… the wife.
Deployed correctly and with motive my wife is capable of amazing results, but alas other than some information on the history of the vehicle a deal was not struck.
Back at home the wife got fed up with me wondering round the house with the phone in my hand and told me just to phone him and ask…
yeah sure I thought, I couldn’t understand the guy face to face god knows what it would be like over the phone.
But true to his word he phoned, it turned out that he was worried that I would buy her then turn her into a trialer or some half breed.
So after convincing him that that was not to be the case and that I intended to restore her he sold her to me.
It took a few hours for it to sink in not only had I bought a Land Rover, I had bought a 1955 Series one, that for all I knew was 'unrestorable'.
In the back of my mind I could hear my dad tutting and asking what the hell had possessed me to do such a thing.
But with 700 miles between us I shrugged it off and looked forward to the day I would bring the old girl home.
This was to prove to be a major job in itself.
I arranged with a friend and someone who was introduced to me with a van.
The trailer would come from the local car club and together would go and load up the Land Rover and be home in time for lunch.
Two hours was spent trying to pull the land rover out of its six years worth of undergrowth.
After nearly breaking my new friends van we gave up.
Fortunately Charlie, who by now I could understand and have quite a laugh with, had a brother who was a local farmer.
30 minutes later, a massive yellow JCB was brought to bear and tow the reluctant Land Rover out of the bush.
Even the JCB had a bit of trouble pulling it out, but in one piece and with all wheels rolling the Land Rover rolled off the bank... with most of the bush still attached to her.
Once loaded onto the trailer, money changed hands and we set off on our short 30 mile trip home only four and half hours late.
This was not to be as easy as we thought.
Three miles down the road Andy the van owner said that the trailer was pulling ‘like a pig’ and that we should stop and check it out.
It turned out that the brake cable had snapped leaving one of the brakes on the front axle jammed on which in turn had cooked itself and then locked up completely.
After spending an hour and half of me smoking myself to an early grave and Andy trying to free the brakes we decided the only way to get home was to remove that wheel and drive the rest of
the journey with the remaining three wheels on the trailer.
This is not ideal but was our only choice, other than to phone a breakdown company that even if they would come and recover the trailer would then proceed to charge us the earth for the
privilege.
So on we went with our three wheel trailer and two and a half ton Land Rover (there was quite a lot of bush still attached) till we got a further four miles down the road when Andy decided
that the trailer was pulling ‘like a real pig’ now.
So we stopped in Tesco’s car park.
The plan was to drop off the Land Rover and leave it there and take the trailer back to the car club and get his own trailer.
But this would be a 50 mile round trip and his trailer had another Land Rover on it that would have to be removed first.
With the light fading fast and rain on the horizon our mood was starting to wither.
Midnight that night we finally got the series one home.
After that I thought the hard work was done .. how wrong I was.
It turned out as we slowly stripped the old girl down that it was a miracle that front was still connected to the rear, the chassis was completely rotten through and it was only the prop
shaft and the odd bit of wire and brake pipe that held the two parts together.
This is where my wife’s work started, finding all the bits that were no longer there or completely rotten and that was a whole lot of parts.
I think by now I have been in contact with most if not all companies that deal with series one parts.
The list is still growing but fortunately I am now in possession of a nearly new chassis.
The major components such as gearbox, axles, engine and most of the body are all in good working order.
The bulkhead is the next big investment, along with a completely new suspension.
As well as finding parts, my wife has also been able to find out some of the history on the Land Rover.
'Bumble' is a 1955 Series I 86 inch pickup, registration number RGC 596, and chassis number 170601523.
She is an ex civil defence vehicle, and after completing her service in 1968, she then joined Western Area Fire Brigade.
RGC 596 was converted to a mini fire engine for Strontian Volunteers so that they could assist Kinlochleven at the numerous protracted heath fires in the peninsula, usually occurring in the
spring time.
The Boundary change of 1.6.1975 saw RGC 596 transferred to Northern Area Fire Brigade together with Kinlochleven.
At present ‘Bumble’ is in two places with her chassis and engine down at the car club and the body and everything else at home in the garage being worked on when time and
money permit me to do so.
The game plan is to have her up and running and past through her first MOT in god knows how many years.
I hope to have it ready for Land Rovers 80th anniversary!
Tony Kennedy
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