When I’d finished the ¾ ton Carryall I’d developed a few skills with that sort of truck, and I thought I’d try another. I’m not a big fan of the cutout wings on the ordinary ½ ton 4 x 4 Carryalls, so that left the VC 6 4 x 4 and the WC 36 / 48 4 x 2 to choose from. Troy Allen in Mineral Wells, Texas, was advertising a WC 36 so I got in touch. Turned out his one was severely hacked about down into a pickup configuration, but he knew where there was another one which had a better body. I paid him to buy the other one, combine the two into one for shipping, and get it dockside to Galveston.

When it arrived everyone just stood about laughing, it looked very, very sad indeed. Not only was it sitting on three of the wrong wheels but the fourth one was one of those skinny space saver things. In addition to that the rear body aperture was knocked 2" out of square (it had been over on its’ roof at least twice)

 

and there were about a hundred bullet holes in it. Most of the .45, .38, and .22 holes were easy to repair, but the drivers side had at least one shotgun blast that was a swine to get right, and what looked like a cannon shell hole through the drivers door.

The body had the remains of a coat of School Bus yellow on it, and BOOKER SCHOOL BUS painted on each side (Booker is a little place right up on the north edge of Texas) The cut-down truck had Eighth Service Command insignia on the doors so that’s what went back on the restored one. The dating information is quite interesting, in that the earlier chassis and body number (81104100) had the later delivery date (January ’42) while the later chassis (81104183) had December ’41 The census number I used was from the later chassis as it was still visible on the hood. To date I have repaired the earlier chassis and fitted the later body to it, using the best available sheetmetal from both for the doors, front end, running boards, and wings. Had to re-skin the tailgate again but I’m getting good at that now. Made my own floor and redid the roof panel (once I’d pushed the body back into line by jacking it 4" in the other direction and letting it spring back) the engine cover is a spare VC one and slightly too early but the rest of it is about right. Also fitted all new glass with NOS winder mechanisms from Norway and a windscreen wind-out from Lyle Van Wert. Apart from a complete plumbing and wiring job, the big job remaining is to completely rebuild the one original engine I got with it (T112-60001) and stick it back in.

 

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