Four years into his restoration of this 1968 Austin FG, Andy Harris was ready to give up. But his friends in the “Threepenny Bit Friday” club weren’t going to let that happen, as Peter Simpson explains.
Back in the day, a BMC ‘threepenny bit’ FG chassis/cab was the basis of the vehicle everyone who needed to transport one or two cars used. Thanks to the Post Office and public utilities making wide use of the FG, there cheap and readily available. Especially if you bought one that had formerly been diesel powered from a specialist dealer who had bought the vehicle in question purely to remove its engine.
But having said that, most of the GPO/Post Office FGs tended to have petrol engines, That’s because they were used by Post Office Telephones rather than Royal Mail. This, though, was better for small garages, car dealers and budget/short circuit motorsport enthusiasts. The mechanical side of a petrol FG was all traditional BMC stuff which was dead-easy to look after and which everyone understood.
Back then, the rules on what you could and could not do with vehicles like this were also somewhat less stringent than today. There were no tachographs of course. ‘Recovery vehicles’ were also MoT exempt, andt until 1988 could also be operated on trade plates. What, however, defined a breakdown vehicle was sometimes interpreted quite broadly. I recall one Hastings area garage (a main dealer no less!) in the 1970s operating its parts-chaser Mk1 Cortina estate without MoT and on trade plates; something I’m sure wasn’t legal even then.
But back to FG transporters, the standard of presentation varied enormously. For some, all that mattered was that the lorry moved and stopped with a reasonable degree of reliability. But some owners took a real pride in the condition and presentation of their vehicle.
And that is the approach taken by Andy Harris.
Now aged 62, Andy has lived around the Staines area of south-west London his entire life, and spent pretty-much all that time on the spanners. He initially worked for London Country Buses, but set up on his own when made redundant in 1989. He has been a self-employed car and light commercial mechanic ever since.
Andy has, it would be fair to say, something of a ‘knack’ for acquiring things which may or may not be useful in future. Indeed, during a photoshoot, a friend turned up and from his van took out an glassfibre figure of the Grim Reaper. This was surplus to requirements from nearby Shepperton Film Studios, and said friend thought Andy would like it. Andy said it was going in the garden, his partner Marlene said that it was not going there under any circumstances. Six months on, this remains unresolved.
Two become one
Anyway, seven or eight years ago, Andy was offered a milk float and a petrol-powered FG horse box for £350. The milk float was sold immediately for £350. The FG however, had been standing for 18 years and was very, very rusty. It was, however, very good mechanically having covered just 44,000 miles from new. So though clearly beyond restoration, the 1971 horsebox certainly had great potential as a greasy-bits parts donor in a ‘one good one out of two’ type project!
However, clearly another basis for restoration was needed. This came in the form of a 1967 chassis-cab which Andy found in Papworth, Cambridgeshire. This had been diesel powered, but was now without an engine. Its history is unknown, other than that it was registered for ‘Showmans Goods’ at the time of purchase.
Andy refurbished the chassis; this was basically solid and needed only localised repair plus cleaning up and painting. The suspension was treated to a complete overhaul with all-new pins and bushes throughout. The braking system was also refurnished from front to rear; fortunately brake parts are generally available, though knowing a few part numbers helps as a lot of stuff was also used on other BMC/BL products and is listed under its more popular applications. Ebay was, of course, a common source of mechanical stuff; the secret to success here is, according to Andy “paying more than anyone else.”
Though the 1967 cab was a much better prospect for restoration, it was still far from good, and as is so often the case, closer examination once purchased revealed many of the places which had looked good were in fact plated over. In particular, the inner wheelarches were pretty-much non-existent, and a new floor was required. Replacement panels for FGs are ‘somewhat scarce’ so local contact “Geoff at GC Engineering” made replacements for these. Various localised repairs were also needed and a Newcastle-based enthusiast with another scrap cab was able to cut a few sections out for reuse. Few, if any, parts came from the horsebox cab.
Andy gets the hump
About four years into the project, and as Andy started work on the cab, the enormity of the task dawned on him and, in Andy’s own words, “I got the hump.” Fortunately, help was at hand in the shape of a number of retired and semi-retired friends who, like Andy, had been stock car racers back in the day. Gradually, these friends, most of whom have specific skills, started helping Andy out with particular jobs. In time, the “Friday Club” started having “Threepenny Bit Friday” working sessions, and Andy is keen to acknowledge the help he has had from everyone including John ‘Chevvy’ Shields, Geoff, Jeff, ‘Daddy G’, Mark, Kevin, Larry at LJS Enamellers, Vince the electrician and last but certainly not least the late Colin who was a highly skilled engineer and did a lot of work on the lorry prior to his passing in 2023.
Work on welding the cab was very much a team-effort. Preparation for painting was then undertaken by “Mark and Kevin” while “Larry” painted it.
The body was also a combined effort by the group; with their stock car racing background they were all very experienced at making bespoke car transporter bodies, and it was a case of building it to fit the existing chassis. Ex racer Mick Collard supplied the winch. We should probably mention here that the FG’s gross laden weight is 5.5tonnes, meaning that in contrast to some of the ‘Transit-based’ vehicles one sometimes sees out and about, this is more than capable of carrying a full-size car. “Ken from Essex” (who, apparently, has a six-cylinder FG that is used daily) supplied a bespoke stainless steel exhaust…
Low mileage mechanicals
The horse box’s main contribution to this project was the low-mileage engine, gearbox and back axle which needed little beyond cleaning servicing and repainting. As you can see, the engine in particular now looks absolutely superb in original BMC green. Much material from the horsebox cab was also reused. This includes, remarkably, the seats and seat covers which look like new but are actually the originals cleaned up. The instruments, including the speedometer showing 44,000 miles, also came from the horsebox, though John and Andy fitted a new headlining.
On the electricial side Vincent, s the group’s “resident electrician” repaired the existing loom as required and adapted it to alternator charging. He also, in the interests of safety, upped the fuse-count somewhat from the original two. New tyres came from Discount Tyres and wheels of Egham, and Andy was able to choose the best seven wheels (six plus a spare) from the twelve that were to hand.
Seven years after it started work was finally completed, and the FG’s first trip out was to the nearby Wraysbury Show. Further show appearances are planned for 2025, though Andy and the rest of the ‘gang’ prefer to support smaller local events which include all types of old vehicle than the major national and lorry-only shows.
And of course because it’s a car transporter, the FG provides an ideal means of getting two vehicles to a show with just the one driver!
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