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A HERITAGE
RESTORATION
Part 1
1952 Austin A125 Sheerline
Ambulance |
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As it was found
parked at O'Keefe Ranch
This story began in England at the Thomas
Startin Junior LTD. factory in Birmingham where
custom bodied ambulances were built for domestic
and export use. Sheerline limousine chassis were
shipped to this factory where the wood and
aluminum bodies were constructed. The limousine chassis
had a longer wheelbase than the regular
Sheerline chassis and were more suitable for the
ambulance and hearses built at this factory. |
In 1951, Fred
Deeley Motors presented an Automobile Exhibition
from Austin of England at the
Seaforth Armories,
Burrard Street, Vancouver.
Photos from that exhibition have been obtained by
the Old English Car Club of B.C. and can be viewed
on their website at www.oecc.ca
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One of the vehicles shown in the main
picture was a large Austin Sheerline ambulance.
There are reported to have been only three of
these ambulances exported to Canada. One of
these imports was purchased by the City of
Kamloops in 1952 and the chapter has a copy of
the newspaper picture and story of the
presentation of the keys for the ambulance
(shown in the background) to Kamloops Mayor,
Jack Fitzwater by local Austin automobile
dealer, Stuart Wilson, with then-fire chief
Charlie Miller and then-alderman Wilf Jordan
looking on. |
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This was the first "purpose built ambulance"
owned by the City of Kamloops and it served the
community faithfully for more than a decade until
some time in the mid-1960's when it was replaced
with more modern equipment and its status
deteriorated rapidly. It was purchased from the
Kamloops Fire Department by Ian Newby who had heard
through the B.C. Antique Fire Apparatus Association
that a good home was needed to keep it from being
sold and camperized. Mr. Newby travelled by bus to
Kamloops and completed the purchase and with a full
tank of gas from the firemen, was given an official
fire engine escort out of town. |
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He advised that
he drove back via the Hope- Princeton Highway and
well after dark was midway between Keremeos and
Princeton when an older large North American sedan passed him. About five
miles further down the road he rounded a curve to
find a genuine cowboy, Stetson and all, standing
beside the road waving a chrome bumper to attract
his attention. He stopped, and was told that there
had been a bad accident, and thank goodness he had
arrived so quickly! It turned out that the car that
had passed him had been driven by a women riding
with her dog in her lap. She had passed the cowboy,
hung her left wheel in the gravel, over-corrected
and rolled the vehicle several times down the middle
of the highway. In the days before seatbelts, she
had been thrown from the car, and was lying in the
road severely injured, but all she was asking about
was her dog. He didn't have the heart to tell her
that her dog had also been thrown from the car and
killed. Using his Army first aid training, with the
help of the cowboy, Mr. Newby made the woman as
comfortable as possible and turned on the emergency
flashers on the ambulance to alert any approaching
traffic that the road was blocked. After about ten
minutes, an RCMP patrol car from the Princeton
Detachment appeared, and although there was no
stretcher in the ambulance, Mr. Newby was asked to
transport the injured woman to the hospital in
Princeton. One constable rode in the back, while he
followed the police car as fast as
the ambulance could go heading for Princeton with the siren and
red lights operating. When they arrived, the
hospital staff rushed the woman into emergency, the
RCMP thanked him for his help, and he continued home
to Vancouver. |
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The ambulance was stored in
a building at Boundary Bay Airport until the
RCAF station was closed. It was then stored in
a reserve fire hall in Coquitlam. While in
Coquitlam it was used several times at the
Westwood Race track as the emergency ambulance
while the regular ambulance was in for service
or repair.
Mr.
Newby purchased a Shell garage in Fisherman's Cove in
1974. In 1976 or 1977 the ambulance was driven to the
garage for servicing. There was no room to store it
inside overnight so it was locked up under the cover
of the gas pump roof. In the morning - it was gone.
Someone had stolen the ambulance. The West Vancouver
police couldn't believe that someone had the nerve to
steal something as spectacularly obvious as a large
white ambulance with "City of Kamloops" in gold
letters on a red background down both sides.
It was
never found nor heard of until years later when Mr.
Newby received a phone call from a Mr. Clark who had a
B.C. transfer paper with Mr. Newby's name badly forged
on it. The connection came through someone in the
Vintage Car Club. Mr. Newby never followed up on this
due being out of the country off and on for a few years. |
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the ambulance was the few years it spent rusting
away at the O'Keefe Ranch outside Vernon. A Kamloops
fireman, Jim Watson, rescued the ambulance hulk from
a barn at the O'Keefe Ranch about 15 years ago with
hopes that the Kamloops firemen would restore it to
its original glory. When he passed away, it was
obtained by Unfortunately, Mr. Houghton passed away
from Cancer and had left the fate of the ambulance
to his wife. She spoke with Stuart Houghton. Jim
Harker, another fireman and current President, at
the time, of the Kamloops Chapter, VCCC, asking if
the chapter would like to take on the project as she
would be happy to donate the vehicle to us. It was
agreed by the club members to take it on as a future
project. A commemorative
plaque will be placed on the dashboard in
memory of Stu Houghton when the restoration is
finished. |
In the field at
O’Keefe Ranch (Vernon) |
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The "project"
was stored at Mal Dixon's
property in Pritchard for a couple of years
until he sold his property at which time it came to
rest in the writer's storage field for a few years,
along with some other people's future projects. In
2005, member Andy Cordonier, purchased a large shop
for his business and offered a corner of his shop as
a space where the ambulance could be worked on and
restored. The offer was
quickly taken up as we "restless restorers" needed
another project and a place for weekly bull
sessions. My wife was happy to see the old Austin
going to get restored. The storage field at our
property was then reduced to my parts car and Dick
Parkes projects. |
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| Moving day saw
Jerry Wallin arrive with his heavy duty trailer that
sunny afternoon in 2005 and with the help of Andy
Cordonier, Dave Dickinson, Dick Parkes, John Bone
and Julian Slotylak and myself we loaded the
ambulance onto the trailer and it began its next
journey to Andy's shop. The fun was about to begin. |
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Push
harder Dick & Andy I am sure
it will go! |
Moving crew
Jerry Wallin, Jack Woolard {writer}, Andy Cordonier, Dick Parkes,
John Bones, Julian Slotylak,
Dave Dickinson {photographer}
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The restoration
begins; - It was decided that we would assemble
a crew of willing volunteers to disassemble the
ambulance and would have work nights on
Thursdays through the fall, winter and early
spring.
Dick Parkes
would be in charge of the overall process;
Craig Beddie
would look after the mechanical aspects;
Ken
Finnegan would look after the electrical
Jack
Woolard {writer} would be in charge of the
woodwork/patient compartment.
Dave
Dickinson would be photographer/record keeper of
who was there, what was being done and where
were the parts?
Little did we know how
much work would be involved in completing the
task. With only a short weekly work bee time
dragged on as you will see as this restoration
story continues. Thank you Andy for your
patience, guidance and help throughout the
project. |
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The first night, as I recall, was
having a thorough look at the project and deciding
how we would proceed. I had always wondered how
there came to be an old door service station sticker
on the drivers door indicating that it had been
serviced in Horseshoe Bay at some time. The story
from Mr. Newby connected the dots. Many pictures
were taken and a list began of missing items. I
don't think we got too much accomplished the first
week but the second week we started to take the
ambulance apart. |
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The plan was to separate the project into three
pieces - the frame, the engine/transmission and the
patient compartment. The wooden skeleton would be
removed from the frame and placed on a large "dolly"
made from part of an old truck frame, the front fenders,
grill ,etc. would be removed and the firewall/floor pan
of the cab would be mounted on another dolly made from
another part of the old truck frame, the
engine/transmission would be removed from the frame. The
separated frame could then be refurbished with all its
components. |
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My crew of Jason
Tasko,
Jerry Wallin and Virgil Lysgaard began
the slow process of removing the rear doors, the
windows, various mouldings and the aluminum skin
from the roof and then the side panels. We had to
remove these items so they would not be damaged
when the body was lifted off the frame. We had to
pull each tiny nail holding the aluminum to the
wood without damaging the metal. I recall this
took a few weeks to complete the process. When it
was done I took the nine foot long flat aluminum
side panels, the mouldings and the windshield
frame and glass home and stored them in the loft
of my barn to prevent damage. The wood skeleton
was very unstable when we had all the skin removed
as the roof cross members were mostly broken. The
wood skeleton of the roof extended over the
driver's compartment and down into the rear
portion of the front fenders where the doors were
attached to the wood so it was necessary to cut
the two side members of the roof rails near the
dash in order to separate the firewall/floor pan
from the rear compartment. Two sets of cross
braces were installed in the passenger compartment
to hold the skeleton together while it was being
lifted. That was a scary moment as there was no
secure way of doing it so the body was jacked up
and blocked as best we could in order to roll the
chassis out from under it. At one point it looked
like the whole thing was going to collapse,
destroying the skeleton. It twisted a bit but held
together. Thank goodness we put in solid
cross-bracing or we would be really starting from
scratch on rebuilding the skeleton. When installed
on the rolling dolly we were able to square things
up and move it around to work without getting in
anyone else's way.
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