Ownership of my first Ford Thames truck came in 1965. My brother and his friend purchased two Thames E83W vans with the idea of building a hotrod. These vehicles, an ex-painters van in original green primer and an ex-blueberry farm van that sported a grey body and black fenders were real anachronisms even back then! My brother and his buddy started to strip the painters van and cut away its firewall before soon tiring of the project. The blueberry van was so well kept and in such excellent running order that my brother decided to keep it, especially considering he’d only paid forty dollars for it. The Richmond blueberry farmer had been forced to sell it after the new Deas Island Thruway opened and the higher speeds soon made the slow Thames impractical for his purposes. Some months later I purchased the truck from my brother when he required a quick fifteen dollars to attend a dance! In 1967 I decided to make “restoring” the Thames my Canada Centennial project. I sanded it down to bare metal (wow, was that green primer tough!), repaired a few dents and some rust behind the rear wheels, and had it sprayed in red. It looked quite nice but soon the distractions of young manhood drew away my attentions and the Thames deteriorated in my father’s carport. Months turned to years and it wasn’t until 1978 when I bought my first house in Maple Ridge that I decided to get it going again. Only minor cleaning and tuning was required, though I did wreck another Thames purchased for one hundred dollars from Coast Import Auto Wreckers on Mitchell Island, mostly to get a much-needed new throttle linkage. Soon it was off to the new house with a full load of spare parts on board. The drive from Richmond to Maple Ridge was an epic journey for the old truck. By 1984 I was back in Richmond, in a townhouse, kids on the way and no time for the Thames, again. I decided to donate it to the Richmond Museum who promised a good home. Alas, it was left under tarps in a works yard for seven years and suffered cruelly! Finally, though, a sympathetic curator approached Richmond High School to ask about restoration. Luckily, John Lickett, the automotive class teacher, was an ex-Clarke Simpkins English Ford mechanic who’d cut his teeth on Prefects, Anglias and Thames. His classes and the woodwork students restored the mechanical parts of the truck and the wooden framing and floor of the body. Once again, though, it went into storage pending a paint and bodywork sponsor and remains there to this day, many years later. I was given back most of the extra parts that I donated and these have proven a great help in recent years.
After moving to Tsawwassen in 1989 the Thames faded from my mind for a while but never completely disappeared. In 1994 I met a fellow Enfo enthusiast who put me in touch with Ian Cox in Victoria and before I could stop myself I was once again a ’51 Thames owner. This time it was a rather sad old grey van with numerous missing parts but it was a Thames and I was thrilled!
The search was on for parts and to my amazement, Thames truck sightings began to pop up all over. My son and I even drove all the way to New Denver in the Kootenay country to haul back the remains of a ’48 van and a ’51 pickup plus lots of spares.
A few months later it was another rough but running pickup from Savonna, B.C. In the meantime I was gathering more parts here and there and everywhere.
A trip to the Fall Haney Swap Meet one year garnered a response to a “wanted” poster hanging from my backpack and within a couple of hours I was owner of a 1953 Thames Estate Car. This was a rare find, indeed.
Would I ever stop? No, seemed to be the answer when an innocent family vacation to Powell River caused me to delve into an old Vintage Car Club of Canada roster for a local contact to pursue a rumour I’d heard of a Thames pickup in the area. Once again, it was only hours before my latest find was being put on a barge bound for Richmond. A couple of years later I collected another van from a Langley farmer. It had lived almost its whole life on his father’s farm and although slightly damaged by a falling tree is restorable.
Beginning in late 2004, and assisted by many talented and generous friends a complete mechanical restoration of the 1951 Thames steel-boxed pickup was completed after a little more than two years. Every aspect of the truck’s operating systems were refurbished or replaced. Although it looks reasonable as it is, the pickup will now have to undergo a total restoration of the cab and box to be truly completed. Work is ongoing separately on another cab and pickup box from yet another Thames acquisition (found in New Westminster) in order to allow me to continue driving and enjoying my running pickup until such time as I’m ready to marry the restored mechanicals to a restored body. I’m enjoying taking my pickup to shows and events where its seems to attract attention out of all proportion to its size and power. Although not yet finished, people seem to like it “warts and all”!