Thread: Scrapping S1 & yes, I am peeved-off

Thats not "Tom the Pom" from Cooma is it???.

Originally Posted by bayrover

Thats not "Tom the Pom" from Cooma is it???.

TTP has been known to inhabit Cooma, Melbourne, Perth and the antipodes (from the Oz perspective).

I don't think he is currently inhabiting Cooma ATM, or where he was when he first became a member of AuLRO. Only TTP can confirm that.

Regarding the morality or otherwise of wreckers. A good friend owns a five acre wrecking yard in what is now an inner suburb. his family first bought this land and a good bit else over a hundred years ago. His father started the wrecking business in 1955 and my mate bought the yard from him about 1980 as a going business. No favours either, he paid valuation. He is now preparing to retire. The tenant in the wrecking yard has ceased operating and is cleaning out his part of the yard. My mate kept a selection of older and more important vehicles when he first rented out the yard 18 years ago. He has been cleaning out his section in preparation for retirement for about 2-3 years. He had a number of vehicles from the late 30's to late 70's which were relatively complete and good restoration propositions. He advertised these extensively in the enthusiast magazines. I advertised some Land Rover panels on here. All he achieved was to sell two complete vehicles and his yard crane built on a 1940's IH tractor. He got lots of time wasters who wanted to cherry pick parts from the vehicles. His response was that he had ceased dismantling years before. The vehicles were for sale as is, as advertised. The price is a minimum of scrap value, make an offer. Those who didn't want to buy them are now castigating him for sending good restorers for scrap. They had their chances. Almost all have now disappeared into the blast furnaces of the Orient. The yard is up for sale and will become another brick and concrete desert of town houses.

Originally Posted by lardy

This makes me think that it would be prudent to squirrel away some rare examples ...<snip>

Squirrelling takes a lot of space and you often end up with a lot of left-overs that nobody wants..

At times collections of parts including S1s and SIII V8s have been offered to me, I use my (and others) time, effort and fuel to collect then store the collections. Then there are the ones that I purchase and store. Parts for these are collected to make a complete vehicle and other bits distributed as required, the stage 1 going to at least 4 other enthusiasts, yet I still have collections of unwanted bits to store. With 80" bits I have given away a pair of long nose diffs, a 1948 air cleaner, 2 X 1595 cc engines 2 X 1997 cc engines, 2283 cc engine and even a 138 CID Holden grey engine, as well as other bits.

To me it is important that the bits go to where they are needed. In fact it seems that to make a good vehicle you need at least two vehicles; one from the coast with good body panels but rust in the chassis/firewall; and a vehicle from west of the ranges that has a rust free chassis and firewall but with panels that have been shaken to bits and cracked.

What really peeves me off is the removal of bits like firewalls from a restorable vehicle/chassis using a gas axe, rendering a chassis as a useless piece of metal that requires a lot of work to repair. It is often these firewalls that leave our shores.

Diana

Individual acts of bad faith aside there's nothing much that can be done about the export of Series 1s or bits thereof. I saw a similar situation in the muscle car scene where there was a ready market in the US for Falcon Hardtops following publicity generated by the Mad Max movies. Unlike Landrovers Falcon 2 doors start rusting once they leave the factory and the supply of parts and good restorers is now very scarce indeed.
The outcomes that happened there were that the exporters probably saved a lot of vehicles that would have been melted down as the overseas restorers were happy to rebuild from a lower standard base vehicle than locals. Also whilst it generated a lot of angst the total number of vehicles shipped overseas was very low in comparison to production totals anyway.
At the end of the day if you want it buy it and accept the fact that prices will go up due to market forces. It will only get worse if the dollar drops to 35p.

Regards,
Tote