Project Details
Category: Light Vehicles
Project Description
Current Owner
Jeremy Bourgaize
Model
Pick-Up
Year of Manufacture
1936
Vehicle History
First registered in March 1936 in Peacehaven, East Sussex.
This vehicle started life as a Series 1 Morris 8 Saloon 4-seater car. History then intervened and transformed this small car into the vehicle it is now.
Shortly after the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1941, the Admiralty commandeered a number of Eight saloons and took them to a coach builder in Bow, London, for customisation.
An immediate need had arisen for small commercial vehicles within the dockyards to service the battleships in port, carrying and fetching supplies within a confined environment. It was used as light transport at the Fleet Mail Office in Portsmouth Dockyard
The chassis was lengthened by 12” and the whole rear of the car was removed and replaced with a wooden pick-up body. This vehicle is believed to be one of the very few survivors.
Little was known of the pick-up’s history after WW2 until it surfaced running around as a farm delivering logs in Warwickshire in the late 1990’s. The Morris was brought from the farm in 2002, The new owners tried to find out some history of the truck, they looked at the Army transport Museum in Beverly Yorkshire the vehicle is thought had spent a significant time in a Motor Museum, they were pointed in the direction of the Admiralty records at the library in Portsmouth Dockyard, there they were told of its use as an Admiralty courier during WW2.
The Morris underwent a comprehensive yet sympathetic restoration between 2002-2004, it was re-painted, re-trimmed and chromed. The Blackout lines were painted on by the workshop at the Portsmouth Dockyards. After Help from the Imperial war Museum and the R.N transport Section at Hilsea Portsmouth it was Fully restored.
In June 2004 the vehicle was invited by the Imperial war Museum to be displayed alongside the entrance of HMS Belfast in London to mark the 60th anniversary of D Day.
December 2006 was asked by The Royal Navy School of Marine & Air Engineering at Gosport to take part in the HMS Sultan Freedom of Gosport Parade, after almost 70 years the Morris was back in service with the R.N.
In 2008 it took 2nd in show at the National Morris 8 gathering and received numerous other awards since its restoration.
In 2010 the vehicle was sold and travelled north to Stoke-on-Trent where it spent many years going to shows and vehicle runs, until it was no longer used and garaged for a good few years.
In 2024 the Pick up came to Guernsey and has been recommissioned and restored to near its 2002 condition.