FAMILY FORD

Surrey-based Britaniacrest Recycling, and the Foss family who own it, are no strangers to lorry restoration. They’re no strangers to the pages of Classic & Vintage Commercials either, as we’ve featured their collection, and some of their past restorations, several times in the past.

Their latest project, the 1963 Thames County Trader tipper seen here, is though without doubt their most impressive yet. As you can see from the pictures, the standard achieved is truly superb. It’s also their most ambitious project to date, given that they started with little more than an extremely distressed chassis/cab unit that had already been stripped of many useful parts.

But the most important part of this restoration is why they did it, and why it had to be a 6x4 Thames Trader.

Thames Trader tippers in general, and County 6x4s in particular, are a crucial part of the family’s history in haulage. Back in the 1960s, Charlie Foss – father of Ray Foss and grandfather of Ray Junior, Richard and Chris (the family members who between them run Britaniacrest today) was a very major player in the London road haulage scene.

Based in Hayes, Middlesex, his tippers worked on most of the big construction projects of the 1960s and early 1970s. These including