Heritage Commercials Magazine - capturing the spirit of vintage days

1955 Guy Otter

From the smart, workman-like appearance of this newly rebuilt 1955 Guy Otter flatbed, it would be reasonable to assume its owner would have been as keen as mustard to see the job through, however, it wasn’t so owing to distressing family circumstances. Eric Weighell, who lives in the village of North Cowton in North Yorkshire, explained: “My brother Harry bought the Guy twenty years ago, and after removing the Luton body, the lorry went into storage for ten to fifteen years until he died in 2007. His wife attempted to sell the lorry, but there were no takers, it was in such a dilapidated state, so I took the task on. Not an easy thing to do, I was already in my seventies and suffering from sciatica. However, it was time for me to come out of retirement after running a garage business in our village for many years, so we transported the Guy home and began stripping it down.”

As is so often the case, the survival of this Guy owes a lot to it having been bought and operated by a showman in the later stages of its working life. The reason that this is fortunate is that the distances that a showman would need to cover over the summer show season would have been a lot shorter than if this lorry had remained in everyday use through the year in general commercial use, with the consequent loss of reliability as hundreds of miles racked up.

Eric provided a few details on the Guy’s history, which commenced at the firm’s Wolverhampton factory when an order came in for a lorry with an extended 25ft loadbed, to which a Luton body was later installed: “The first owner was a firm called Cumberland Beds, and the next owner was a showman called Harold Wroot. I suspect from his name that he might have been of Dutch origin. He was based in Goole, Yorkshire, and he then used the Guy to travel to shows up and down the country towing his showman’s living van. One of his regular runs was from Goole to Newcastle-on-Tyne for ‘The Hoppings’ event held each year on Town Moor. A couple of showmen I talked to recently recalled seeing the Otter struggling along with clouds of steam pouring out of the radiator, suggesting a steam engine was approaching! This seems to have been a longstanding problem, and I would guess the overheating was down to a problem I discovered when I took the water pump to bits – the drive shaft for the water pump had sheared in two!

“Mr Wroot sold the Guy to a lady who was also in the show business, Ethel Shipley of Middlesbrough, although it eventually landed up in the yard of a firm called Leonard’s of Guisborough, where old lorries were sold for export or broken for parts. However, although it was then destined for scrapping, that’s when my brother heard about the lorry and he bought it from Charlie Leonard.”

Whatever reservations Eric had about taking on the Guy were at least in part compensated for by this lorry’s specification, which in addition to having a set of optional dampers all round  also included a splitter for the four-speed and reverse gearbox, also a two-speed rear axle. Eric commented: “When I finally got the Guy up and running, I could appreciate that having the splitter and selecting ‘low’ for the two-speed rear axle were both really useful when manoeuvring this lorry at low speeds. The steering’s so heavy there’s no way you could work the steering wheel if this lorry is standing still. It has to be moving before you can make any effective steering inputs, and selecting the lowest gearing that’s available does help!”

Worth reflecting

Eric recalled that he already had some backbreaking experience of how difficult steering these Guy Otters could be from his early working career at the village garage in 1951 as an apprentice motor mechanic: “I was too young to drive a lorry on the road in those days, but there were a couple of Otters owned by local hauliers in our village, and I would shunt these round the yard whenever they came in for servicing. It’s worth reflecting on the fact that I worked at the garage from the age of just thirteen back in those days – you didn’t have to go looking for a job in those times – jobs were ready and waiting as soon as you had left school.”  If only this was still true today!

Storage of larger commercial vehicles frequently causes problems, and after doing some measuring up of the 25ft bare chassis frame behind the cab, Eric decided that the Guy would be a lot easier to accommodate following a ‘cut and shut’ exercise to bring it down to a more manageable size, which would have the added benefit of making this lorry’s proportions more attractive. So the chassis beyond the back axle was shortened by 7ft, with another 3ft being removed within the wheelbase, providing a shorter, 15ft loadbed area.

Dismantling the cab identified a serious challenge; the front wings were so badly corroded along the line where they were bolted to the cab sides, that they would have fallen off given a good strong tug by hand. This left Eric with the task of cutting out all the rot from the detached wings using an angle grinder, and he then let in new steel where needed, which also involved building up the flange sections and cutting sets of holes to allow the wings to be bolted back onto the cab sides.

Removing the cab doors called for similar work, as the bottom sections were all replaced with new metal that was skilfully smoothed into shape to match the remaining, original metal surfaces. Eric recalled: “Once the doors were completed, and the wings were waiting for refitting to the cab, the cab floor came in for considerable attention, as the panels were completely rotted out, and we used six square feet of sheet steel in order to replace the rotten footwells.” Particular attention was paid to hanging the doors correctly, which close with a ‘clunk’ at the slightest push, so forget that silly advert on the television which implies that only the doors on a VW Golf close shut with such reassuring certainty!

Using the term ‘we’ as recorded above prompted Eric to add that his wife Ann helped out by cleaning up the now fully exposed Gardner 4LK sitting in the chassis frame, and his son Terry helped out with many finishing-off jobs and the respray work. “Terry’s quite particular, perhaps too particular at times, as he likes to see a job has been done properly, which provided a useful balance of opinion when I was in a bit of a hurry to just press on!”

Other than the need to deal with the broken water pump and reset the tappets, the Gardner engine was pronounced to be hale and hearty in spite of what Eric had been told about it being run so persistently with steam billowing from the radiator when travelling to shows and carnivals all those years ago. Eric approached a Gardner engine specialist in order to obtain a replacement water pump, but as they didn’t have one in stock, he sent off the original so that this could then be overhauled and repaired with a new drive shaft installed.

Eric commented: “To finish off the cab, the dash came in for lots of attention, as all the dials were completely unreadable. So after removing these, they were dismantled by removing the bezels and glass so that I could give them a good clean up, so they then worked perfectly again. With my sort of background in the garage trade, I’m more of a repairer than having to rely on buying in any new parts – this is what we always did in the old days!”

The seats and door panels were eventually refitted after they had been professionally recovered. It was fortunate that the under dashboard wiring was fit for reuse other than cleaning the connections, however, Eric had to renew all the frayed wiring for the lighting system and flashers.

Replacement brake shoes all round were an item of expenditure that Eric was anticipating, however, after removing each drum in sequence, he was surprised to find that these were all virtually unworn. “From this I would say that this lorry had been little used since its last Ministry test,” Eric explained. “The braking system was remarkably effective when I got this lorry back on the road, and the only attention it needed was to replace a couple of seals on one of the rear hubs, and a service repair kit brought the master cylinder up to as new working condition. Taken overall, restoring this Guy Otter didn’t cost much at all providing you leave out all the time that went into all the work!”

Buying a couple of rear tyres worked out cheap. These were supplied by a well-known commercial vehicle restorer, Michael Bowman, who keeps his extensive collection at Sheldon in County Durham. And Eric was also pleased to find the steering and suspension was still in good order after stripping down the stub axles, spring hangers and shackles.

Muscle power

Eric recalls: “As the steering was so heavy, I paid a lot of attention to making sure it was working in good order. Which it is, although it’s still so heavy, a trip to the gym to build up the muscle power in your arms would assist when wrestling with the steering wheel! I was feeling pretty good by this stage. Everything was finally coming into shape, although it didn’t look so promising when we started the Gardner up. Seen from behind, the lorry was completely hidden from view by the smoke coming from the exhaust! But it was reassuring to think back in time, as these engines always did that when started from cold and then running for the first three hundred yards or so!”

Fitting a flatbed body had already been decided on, and after carefully measuring the job up, Eric contacted a firm called Jewson’s of Darlington who then pre-cut all the planking, side and cross members to the correct specifications. Eric and Terry assembled what was virtually a kit of parts, and the flatbed was painted at the same time that the cab was resprayed, with Terry balancing on a ladder to apply the main coats in green, and Eric finishing off the job in red and black. A good result considering this was all done in a workshop rather than a sealed spray booth, as the slightest draught or gust of wind could have scattered dust particles over the slowly drying surfaces! Signwriting was then added by Frank Armitage of Northallerton.

Reattaching the famous Guy Red Indian radiator mascot that came with the lorry never took place, as Eric had been forewarned that this might have ‘walked’ when exhibiting the lorry at a show, so it was prudent to substitute a less valuable replica and keep the original as a treasured ornament at home.

Eric concluded the interview with the following statement that suggested more than a trace of twisted logic: “I wouldn’t really want to do another restoration, as with the Guy and also a Bedford TK that I’ve restored, plus five tractors awaiting restoration, there’s plenty to keep me going for now! Although what did I then do after signing off the Guy? I went and bought a 1937 Morris 8 tourer that I’m now rebuilding!”