TERRIFIC TANKER!

One of the star turns at this year’s Classic and Vintage Commercials show at Gaydon was Paul Le Strange’s newly restored Fordson ET7 petrol tanker. It certainly drew, and deserved, many complimentary comments. But what wasn’t so obvious was that this particular restoration had a slightly unusual starting-point.

First, though, a little about the owner. Essex-based Paul is, it would be fair to say, something of a ‘serial restorer’ of lorries, and his name will be familiar to some of you as we’ve featured several of his projects in the past. By day, 58 year old Paul runs his own long-established and highly-respected lorry servicing and repairing business. He’s been repairing lorries since he was 16 and self-employed from from the age of 22 and, as we’ll see later, as a result he knows a lot of local lorry-people. Other lorries in his collection include a 1937 Fordson BBE that was new to Watneys as a brewer’s dray (and also on show at Gaydon) along with an ERF A Series and Foden S39 which are owned jointly. He’s also something of a Land-Rover enthusiast/collector. However, he freely admits that he derives at least as much pleasure from the restoration process as he does from ongoing ownership/preservation. Consequently,