Humber FV1600 - ARN 105-819 - Restoration moves forward.

[Dave Mills]

Bookham, have been through this yard on a Champ Camp and have been up close and personal to the Humber in the pic. No go zone i am afraid as well as the champ sitttng beside it, just to long in the open and rather butchered.

However, there is another couple of gems in that yard, one is a Ferret covered in blackberries still upright on its runflats as auctioned from the army disposal auctions; we managed to prise open a hatch and take a sneek peak inside, it is all there and from memory the crew helmets are still plugged into their sockets. It also was carrying its last units colours still painted on the gaurds.

The other hidden gem is in the top shed in the right hand corner as you look up the hill and it is a Humber FV1600, unmolested and 100% complete as sold from army disposal auctions, Richard Couttes-Smith and myself drooled over it when we found it buried amongst all the wartime jeep canvas stacked in crates sitting on the trailer of a Blitz semi also in the shed and the many, many other vehicles stored undercover in a nice dry environment although covered in inches of dust.

The owner will not sell a thing and it took a lot of talking by others to get all of us scroungers into that yard. It is a shame that this kind of hoarding goes on but each to their own i say. Rich and i both felt that we could have just added fuel, dipped the oil add 24 volts and driven the old girl out of the shed. Of course we would have had to remove the back wall of the shed.

From memory Rich scribbled down the Serial Number of this vehicle.

Dave.