During the World War II, many companies produced vehicles for the war effort, these vehicles came in all shapes and sizes,
some were extremely good in their roles while some otheres were so poor they were discarded almost on entering service.
One such vehicle that stood out then for it’s reliability and character was the Canadian Chevrolet as it still does today.
Here is one such story
In the early post War years Mr E.W Tyler formed a precast concrete manufacturing company in Bromley, Kent. The business soon expanded into the production of agricultural buildings and the company relocated to Tonbridge.
With the development of larger structures, problems arose on site in finding suitable cranes to operate in areas with poor access and ground conditions incompatible with the conventional vehicles. Another dissadvantage was that all cranes for hire in those days came with an operator, which did not always fit in with the working practices of the Tyler erection gangs. It was soon realised that there was a need for a smallrough terrain crane. Not being able to find the ideal vehicle ready made, the robust construction of the Chevrolet 4x4 was identified as the perfect basis for such a vehicle. Development was carried out in the Tylers Company’s own workshops and over a number of years of additions and modifications the Chevrolet mobile crane was created.
The Tyler company fleet of “Chevvies” expanded to 10 vehicles, operating all over the country, erecting buildings for many years until the more manoeuvrable hydraulic cranes became available in the 1970’s
I purchased the old lady about two years ago from a farmer for the princely sum of a Monkey, he told me he used it to cart hay and straw bales on a forty foot trailer, she had been stood up for two years in the field and had not been touched, mainly due to the lack of brakes. The crane lattice jib had been left in a stream for five years under a load of scrap metal, after a lot of climbing over and under bits of metal and getting stung by nettles and brambles we finally managed to dig the jib out, bi heck after five years in a stream she was in a sorry state, we transported the jib back seperately from the Chevy on a fifteen foot trailer behind a short wheel base Landy, the only problem was, the jib is roughly twenty one feet long and the fly jib is another nine feet roughly and weighs about a ton and a half, luckily for us the fly jib was still inside the main jib, that was one hair raising trip coming home
I used every bit of holiday up before the end of May, even the holiday I must save for Christmas, the boss was quite understanding
well as long as I bought her another horse
I must admit I have spent a shed load of money on her and no end of hours but I think she is worth it. This is the oldest vehicle we have but we do have two others, gluttens for punishment huh
