Let’s begin with the question that tugs at every enthusiast sooner or later: can a wreck really be resurrected? And more to the point, why do some people push beyond reason, beyond cost and beyond time itself to bring a cherished machine back to better than new?
As we edge toward the end of the petrol age, something unexpected is happening. Old petrol and diesel vehicles; cars, vans, tractors, motorcycles, tricycles and bicycles are gathering a renewed importance. They are becoming anchors in our shared memory, reminders of how we travelled, worked, played and grew up.
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1941 MK3 MORRIS COMMERCIAL C8 GUN TRACTOR
Regular contributor John Furlong bought a 1941 Morris Commercial C8 artillery tractor from the National Transport Museum intending to save it. Once home, the scale of the task became clear. To store it at all, the Morris had to be dismantled. Almost every outer panel had rusted into thin, fragile fragments, though the chassis and engine remained sound.
The Irish Army purchased 19 C8s in 1940 for the 2nd and 4th Field Artillery Regiments, retiring them in 1968. Johns example is now heading to the United Kingdom, where specialists will use every surviving panel as templates. Even when a panel survives only as a few rusted remnants, there is enough for a skilled restorer to recreate a complete vehicle. If there is a will then there is a way!
1953 PHILLIPS RED KNIGHT
We saw the power of nostalgia from the very beginning of Ireland Made. In our first season in April 2021 we featured the restoration of a 1953 Phillips Red Knight tricycle. It arrived battered, faded and forgotten, yet it had carried a childhood on its small wheels. For the now adult owner, restoring it was never optional. It simply had to be done.
1959 PLYMOUTH BELVEDERE RAT ROD
When a car gets under your skin there is nothing you can do but restore it, no matter how long it takes. This was the case for regular Ireland Made contributor Pat Conroy and his 1959 Plymouth Belvedere Rat Rod.
Belvederes were built from 1954 to 1970. In 1959, Chrysler of Canada shipped 12 CKD kits from Windsor Ontario to the F M Summerfield Works at 138 Baggot Street Dublin, along with 24 Coronado limousines stretched in Belgium. Only 3 limousines survive, 2 owned by Pat, and only one saloon remains, also Pats.
In County Kerry in the 1970s this surviving Belvedere was converted into a hearse. Inspired as a 19 year old by the 1983 film Christine, Pat always had a fondness for the model. In 1990 he heard a Belvedere hearse was for sale in Patrickswell and bought it.
Life brought Pat abroad and he lost contact with the car for 26 years. In 2016 he discovered it still sat in the same shed, untouched but deteriorated. The chassis was sound and that was enough. Using panels from a donor limousine he rebuilt the rear roof, window and boot section and fitted a 5.3 litre 283 hp V12 from a 1978 Jaguar XJS, turning the car into a remarkable restoration and a formidable machine on the road.
A later offer of a rusted Plymouth hearse coach built by Duffy Coachbuilders in Dundalk was, however, beyond saving even with Pats skill.
1963 DKW JUNIOR
That same pull of memory can follow a person across a lifetime. In 1968, John Mitchell, founder of the Kilgarvan Motor Museum, bought a blue 1963 DKW Junior, one of the last DKWs assembled in Ballincollig before production ended in 1964. After driving it for years he sold it on, believing it gone forever.
Decades later he learned that the man who bought the car had died shortly afterwards and that the Junior had been stored away for forty years. The collector who held it spotted Johns name in the logbook and offered him the chance to buy it back.
Fifty four years after they parted, John Mitchell and his 1963 DKW Junior were reunited. It was not a car to leave rusting in a shed. It was a car that had to be restored. At Kilgarvan the Mitchell family continue to revive Irish built machines, including a Cork built 1926 Ford Model T.
1963 BEDFORD FIRE ENGINE
This story begins in 1969 with garage owner and part time fireman David Cullen from Rathdrum County Wicklow and a 1963 Bedford J2 fire engine on a 3 ton chassis, number J2 SZ2 187996. Built and rebodied by HCB Engineering in Southampton in 1963, it entered service as FNI 949 and was assigned to Rathdrum Fire Station. David drove it for many years after joining the Wicklow Fire Service in 1967.
In 2007, David and his son Pat visited Martin Thompsons collection and in the last shed found FNI 949, unseen by David for decades. It was not for sale, but the moment stayed with them.
David died on August 15th 2015. Two weeks later Pat was offered the Bedford as the collection was being reduced. By his father’s months mind mass the Bedford was back in Rathdrum and restoration began. From December 2015 to January 2020 Pat and his son Padraic restored it completely, guided all the while, as Pat believes, by the memory of his father.
1963 FERGUSON TE 20
Tractors are much loved restoration projects in Ireland, tied to memories of family farms and the machines that shaped daily life. With 517,651 Ferguson TE20s built in Coventry between 1946 and 1956, many are now under restoration in sheds across the country.
In 2020, Gerry and Conor Foy bought a worn 1963 TE20 for 1500 euro and restored it in their Ballyshannon workshop. They stripped it completely, renewed mechanical parts, repaired metalwork and repainted it in Ferguson grey. Over four months they carried out all welding, fabrication, spraying and assembly themselves, bringing the tractor quietly back to life.
CAR RESTORATION SKILLS ALIVE
The skills needed to restore old vehicles are still alive across Ireland. The Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board (WWETB) offers its Essential Skills in Classic Car Restoration course, and beyond formal teaching there is the deep pool of knowledge shared among friends, neighbours and the motoring community. With so much experience and enthusiasm to draw from, the question remains: when is a vehicle truly too far gone to restore?
In the end, the question I began with circles back to a clear and simple answer. Yes, a wreck can be resurrected. Because when fond memories drive you, no distance is too long, no cost is too high and no machine is too far gone to save.
If you have restoration story to share, please email Kevin Reid [email protected]
Check out our previous restoration stories:
Cork Built 1963 DKW Junior Lost for 54 Years
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