Engine Punk

Both The Horsepower Whisperer and The Wormton Lamb are now in revision at Lightning Source. I can enter my account area to monitor progress and once the revisions have been accepted I will order proofs. It's a case of checking every day now. Once that stage is complete, I should get proofs in a couple of working days. In the meantime, I've been working on the next part of the Soul Trader trilogy. The title for this is The Grey Ones. This is also the title of a short story by J B Priestley, which I really enjoyed. The story is completely different but if anyone challenges me about it I'll say I'm paying "an homage" to it. I probably mentioned this before, but I raved about this story on a car club forum a few years ago. Everyone was griping about the growing police state and the sense of big brother watching you and slowly grinding our spirits down. I recommended J B Priestley's story to those in need and many years later at a meeting in Edinbu...

This 1940 Dodge D15 truck belongs to John Sartain and is a companion to his half ton Dodge ambulance (VT No. 32) . It has the commercial pattern cab that was superseded by the more easily repairable military pattern and would originally have had a general-purpose steel body and can reverse tilt cover. It was built by the Chrysler Corporation of Canada Ltd in Windsor, Ontario in 1940 and many examples of this type of truck were exported to Russia as well as Britain. The engine was a six cylinder 95 brake horsepower side valve 230.2 cubic inch unit shared with the US examples but those had three speed boxes while this one has four forward speeds. Due to the large numbers produced, spares are not as much a problem as you would think, even after all this time. John has found some replacement front wings in preparation for a forthcoming restoration. He's also acquired a spare engine even though there's nothing wrong with the one's that fitted. I don't think the ch...