Bring a tear into Max's eye

[Col Tigwell]

Yes we were lucky, in that if I had joined six years later they would have all been gone.

The Dodge weapon carrier I have a soft spot for, as it was the first vehicle I ever drove that was brand new. It came complete with a great tool kit, and ran run flat tyres, first time I ever same them.

From Richmond in 1960, I went to the airfield construction squadron in Darwin, where we had three completely rebuilt Diamond T rigs, which we used to move plant on. A whole fleet of Blitzs garbage trucks, water and fuel tankers and of course fire trucks.

In those days we had no parts problems they seem to no problem in getting anything.

All of a sudden in 1970, I worked out how hard it was to find Blitzs, when I visited the Toft sugar harvester factory in Budaberg, there they had lots of new front and rear axles. They built them into their sugar harvesters, and only changed to twin disc axles, when the surplus ones were exhausted.

Either there were a lot of axles available, or Toft were buying new trucks and pulling the axles out. They told me the axles were coming from Melbourne.

Keep up the great work, it is guys like you, who preserve the past, for the future generations, who have my admiration

Regards

Col