Alvis Saracen & Humber Pig acquired by Coventry Transport Museum

We recently acquired two military vehicles from the Imperial War Museum, Duxford – a 1960s Alvis Saracen FV610 and a 1950s Mk I Humber Pig, both of course manufactured here in Coventry, so we are really pleased to have been able to bring these interesting vehicles back home.

The Saracen (pictured above on the left) is an example of the first type of armoured personnel carrier to be made in the UK after World War II, and was part of a family of military vehicles being manufactured by Alvis, which also included the Saladin Armoured Car, the Salamander Fire Tender and the Stalwart High Mobility Load Carrier.

The Alvis Saracen would have carried a squad of 8 soldiers plus a troop commander and driver.  This model also has a high roof, allowing headroom for a Battery Command Post Officer and Technical Assistants to sit at a fitted table and use their plotting instruments.  It also carried fittings for a canvas awning at the rear and sides.

The vehicle is a modest 8ft wide – development and production of the Saracen was rushed to get them into service during the Malayan Emergency, and part of the specification was that the vehicles needed to be able to fit between rows of rubber trees in the Malayan plantations.

This particular example was first put into service with the 24th Regiment of the Royal Artillery, British Army of the Rhine, in December 1966.  It stayed in Germany until 1971, when it returned to the UK to be based at Ludgershall.  The vehicle was given to the IWM in 1982, where it remained until just a few weeks ago, when we brought it back to Coventry.  You may well recognise this type of vehicle from the 1980s, since they were commonly seen on the streets of Northern Ireland during the troubles.

As you can see from the video below, the Saracen does drive – the piece of film below was shot at Duxford when our Historic Vehicle Technicians Andrew & Chris went to prepare the vehicles for their return to Coventry.  Andrew is driving, (he is our resident military vehicle expert and has owned a Saracen in the past, so we thought he was the man for the job); Chris is his glamorous assistant at the start of the film, and camera work is by Curator of Vehicles Christiaan van ‘Spielberg’ Schaardenburg.

The MK1 Humber Pig is an armoured version of the one-tonne GS truck, and would have been used in riot control situations from the 1950s to the 1990s. 

 Mk1 Humber Pig

Humber GS Truck

The Pig shares many similarities with the Alvis Saracen, not only because it also saw service on the streets of Northern Ireland, but also because both vehicles have many parts in common, particularly the Rolls-Royce B-series engine on which both vehicles run. 
 
Little is currently known about the history of this particular Humber Pig, but we are working with colleagues at Bovington Tank Museum in an attempt to find out more. 

Unfortunately the Pig does not currently run, but it is hoped that with some work in the early part of next year, we may be able to get the Saracen to a point where it can be driven on the roads and taken to events – they will have to be local ones though, as it only manages 3 miles to the gallon!

Both vehicles are currently in Coventry Transport Museum’s off-site store - sign up for our email newsletter to make sure you receive details of the next Open Store Day.

With thanks to the Imperial War Museum Duxford for donating these two vehicles, and to Bovington Tank Museum for their invaluable help in sourcing manuals and information about both vehicles.

Recommissioning the 1909 Rover 15

One of the oldest vehicles in the Museum collection, the 1909 Rover 15, has been in the workshop for some serious attention over the past couple of months.  Whilst this beautiful vehicle is much admired by visitors to the Museum, and even occasionally goes out to shows such as the Festival of Motoring and the NEC Classic Motor Show, it has been hiding some dark secrets.

The Rover was acquired by the Museum in 2004, having undergone an expensive restoration by its previous owner, but hasn’t been run since its arrival.  Earlier this year, the decision was made to recommission the vehicle to running condition, and in July, Museum Technician Chris Strawbridge set to work.

The first job of course was to change all the fluids, and here’s where Chris discovered the first problem – at some point one of the seals had shrunk, meaning that all of the radiator cooling water had ended up in the oil in the bottom of the engine – and since the oil had been emulsified by the water, it looked likely that this had happened when the engine last ran.

As you can imagine, this water had caused severe engine damage, the worst of which was corrosion on the oil pump drive gears, to the point where there were barely any teeth remaining – Chris is currently having new gears made at a local engineering firm to completely replace the ruined parts.

Next up, when Chris took the sump off, he discovered more play in the big end bearings than you would expect of an engine that has been rebuilt, and his initial suspicion was that this was another casualty of the water leak.  On closer inspection however, he found that the engine had not been assembled properly when it was rebuilt before arriving at the Museum – in particular, parts of the big end bearings had been left with metal burrs attached, meaning that Chris had to strip the lot to get the big ends functioning correctly.

Chris is currently awaiting the arrival of the new gears to replace the corroded ones, and is none-committal about how long the rest of the work will take once these parts arrive, since he can’t be sure what other secrets may be lurking as the work continues.  

Whilst Chris has many years’ experience of working on all kinds of different vehicles, it is the first time he has worked on a vehicle of this age and he is learning a huge amount about it as he progresses with the work.  Chris feels that it’s vitally important to carry out this kind of work and try to keep older vehicles running – otherwise how else will skills and understanding about how they were built and how to look after them be passed on for the future?

If Chris succeeds in getting the Rover running there will be another interesting challenge to overcome in order to put it on the road – the car carries acetylene lamps, and if it is to pass an MOT the lamps must be in working order.   

Calcium carbide powder will have to be placed inside the lamps, onto which water is dripped, producing acetylene gas though a jet, which is then lit to form a sort of candlelight to light up the headlamps.

If and when the lamp-lighting day arrives it will be wonderful to see, and will be a testament to a lot of hard work and patience by a skilled technician – we will keep you informed of Chris’s progress with the Rover over the coming weeks and months.

Store Open Day & Coventry Corporation Bus Centenary

We had a fantastic day on Saturday 12th May, as well over 1000 people flocked to our off-site stores to spend time exploring the stores (where around half of the collection is kept) and enjoying a spectacular display of vintage buses, who were lined up in commemoration of 100 years of Coventry Corporation Transport.

A selection of photographs from the day are below, and huge thanks must go to the following for making the day such a massive success:

Roger Burdett and all of his friends and colleagues at the Coventry Corporation Transport Society for doing an amazing job in organising the bus display and marshalling on the day.

Friends of Coventry Transport Museum for acting as volunteer marshalls on the day.

Steven Knight for his help in promoting the event.

James Davies, Estate Manager at Wigley Contracts for his support and flexibility in allowing us to use the site in this unusual way for the day!

Roger, Jim & Maureen Bailey

All staff at Coventry Transport Museum and many other people who supported the event in a whole range of ways.

Coventry Transport Museum on the road

Clive Parker-Skelhon, our PR & Media Manager was the guest speaker at St. Leonard’s Parish Hall in Marston Green near Birmingham on Wednesday 14th March.
He was the guest of the Marston Greenagers, a lively and vibrant group of around 60 people who meet every week. Clive gave an engaging presentation about the Museum and his role as Head of PR & Media at the Museum.

He started his presentation at 8.15pm and went on till nearly 10pm with a Q & A session. Various brochures about forthcoming exhibitions and events were given out - along with lots of CTM pens. You can never have enough pens!

At the end of the evening, the organiser Carol Osbourne thanked Clive for his presentation and said, “I don’t really like Transport Museums and the like, but I really enjoyed tonight’s talk and will be coming to the Museum with my husband Don very soon. Clive is a very interesting and engaging speaker, his time as radio presenter certainly shows!”.

Clive is always happy to come to your group meeting to give a presentation about the Museum – you can contact him on 02476 234295 or clive.skelhon@transport-museum.co.uk

1960 Hillman Minx Rescue

On a sunny Sunday at the end of February 2012, Coventry Transport Museum staff Andrew Thomas and Christiaan van Schaardenburgh went to collect this 1960 Hillman Minx from a house in Coventry.

The owner, Irene Taylor, had used the car as her daily car until an engine problem stopped her in 1994, and the car has been stored in a garage in her garden ever since. Now she is moving house and the car had to be removed from the garage, otherwise it would have been scrapped. We are delighted to have been able to save the car from the scrapyard, because the Minx is a very significant car for Coventry, it was really the Ford Focus or VW Golf of its day, and many people would have owned one. This particular Minx is rather rare because it has the ‘Easidrive’ automatic gearbox system. We have five other Minx cars in our collection: the number one Minx from 1931, a 1934 Minx (which is now part of the running collection), a 1935 Aero Minx with special streamlined body, a 1952 Minx mark V and a 1967 Super Minx Estate.


Initially we hope to display the car ‘as found’ and then subsequently we will give it the necessary conservation treatment. Irene’s Minx will be joining her late husband’s 1967 Hillman Super Minx Estate which was donated to the museum by the Taylor family in 1991.

National Science & Engineering Week

During National Science & Engineering week (9th-18th March) we will be trialling our all new STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Maths) education sessions.

We’ve been busy developing two new sessions with local secondary schools Blue Coat & Coundon Court. The first of the new sessions; ‘Tyred & Tested’ is a science themed workshop that takes a closer look at friction, by exploring the many varied tyres in the Museum collection.

Our Design & Technology themed session ‘Design Challenge’ examines the various elements of vehicle design used for different types of vehicles, and challenges the students to come up with their own model to test.

Both sessions are aimed at Key Stage 3 groups and include a tour-based section, where learners will have the chance to examine the Museum’s eclectic collection, and a workshop-based session where they can test out their theories with creations of their own.

These new sessions will be officially launched in September for the 2012-13 academic year, but Science & Engineering Week seemed like the perfect opportunity to try them out and get some feedback, particularly as the theme this year is ‘Our World in Motion’.

For more info about the Education Sessions available at the Museum , or the new sessions being developed, please visit the Activities for Schools section of our website contact our Learning Team at education@transport-museum.co.uk

Introduction to the 1916 Maudslay Subsidy Chassis Restoration Project

One of the major projects currently being undertaken by the Friends of Coventry Transport Museum alongside Museum staff, is the restoration of a 1916 Maudslay Subsidy Chassis.

The Friends of the Museum are recording their work on this project on a separate Maudslay Project Blog, but we asked Curator of Vehicles Christiaan van Schaardenburgh to give an overview of the project so far, for readers of this main Museum blog:

In the period before the First World War, the government set out specifications for lorries for military use. Several commercial vehicle manufacturers actually built these vehicles, including: Daimler, Thorneycroft, AEC and Maudslay. Although they were all different, they were built to the same requirements such as weight, horsepower, dimensions, etc. Different body styles were fitted to these vehicles, depending on their use. Large numbers of these military lorries were sold as surplus at auctions after the Great War.

This particular chassis would have been built by Maudslay at Parkside for the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. The vehicle is believed to have been used by the War Department on an airfield in the Angus region of Scotland. Four identical Maudslay chassis were purchased by Coventry Corporation Tramways after the war in 1921 for conversion to buses.

The Museum’s 1916 Maudslay Subsidy chassis was acquired by the Museum in August 2000 from a farm in Dundee, for £10,000. The vehicle was mostly complete, but in a totally unrestored condition. The Great War, Model B three-tonner, was last used in the mid 1970s as a holiday home at Crathy on Deeside, and before that it had been a showman’s living van until 1932. It was stored for many years until being sold to the museum.

Ever since the purchase of the Maudslay chassis, the Friends of Coventry Transport Museum have been raising funds for the restoration of the Maudslay. Restoration of the chassis started in July 2007, every Friday a dedicated team of Friends work with the museum’s collections care team on restoring the lorry to its former glory.

Although the chassis is largely complete, because of its long life as a showman’s vehicle and subsequently as a holiday home, almost every component has a significant amount of wear and tear. It is our goal to rescue as much of the original items as possible - rather than just replacing components with newly made examples, we try to repair the original items, this always adds to the authenticity and gives it ‘the right look’ when inspected closely.

The restoration started with making a detailed photographic record, which has already proven invaluable when the re-assembly started. Once a complete condition survey had been written, the Maudslay was completely disassembled into its main components.

Due to the impending centenary remembering the start of the First World War in 2014, we are aiming to complete the Maudslay during that year. Should we fail to do so, and it is always a difficulty to put a completion date on a restoration project, then we aim to finish the project during 2016 - the 100^th anniversary of the chassis.

Follow our progress on the Maudslay Project blog.

The following companies have provided us with their services so far, often with a favourable rate:

Lenoch Engineering, Ramsay Precision Engineers, Matrix Lasers, CMR Engineering, Clifton Rubber.