Restoration: Ford D750—Part 7
The final shade of green revealed
Complete with rust
The last restoration helps with loading the D Series’ wheels off to the sandblasters
One good and one bad mudguard
|
|
|
The final shade of green revealed
|
|
|
|
Complete with rust
|
|
|
|
|
|
The last restoration helps with loading the D Series’ wheels off to the sandblasters
|
|
|
|
One good and one bad mudguard
|
In the latest installation, Deals on Wheels' resident restorer Lyndsay Whittle finalises a colour scheme for the Ford D750
In closing last month’s instalment, I mentioned an unlikely triumvirate of my wife Christine, Graham Norton, and the American music group The Jonas Brothers as having some kind of weird connection with a 1970 D Series Ford truck.
Given that the Jonas Brothers are Americans, Graham Norton is Irish, Christine was born in Scotland, and the D Series originated in England, it would appear that the four separate entities wouldn’t bear any kind of relationship to one another. Allow me to elaborate.
While already being six months into what should be a year-long restoration, I had yet to decide on the colour scheme for the truck, and the indecision was driving me to distraction.
The final colour of the interior and underside of the cab was pretty much a no-brainer, as the original light blue was in an incredibly good condition given the age of the truck, and it made sense to have some matching paint batched to facilitate an easy blend with the existing paintwork.
While it would’ve been a whole lot easier to paint the entire vehicle in a single colour—as the truck had been throughout its life—that light blue was just a little too close to the livery of a high-profile New Zealand roading and contracting corporate for comfort.
Deciding on colour schemes for my previous restorations has been the bane of my life, as I’ve never considered myself to be creative or artistic in any way shape or form. When I operated a small fleet of trucks back in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s (20th century in case anybody’s wondering), they were all painted white simply because that was the colour the cabs were supplied in and the trucks always needed to go on the road asap.
But when I carried out my first restoration on the 1953 K Bedford about five years ago, the colour issue was dead simple. When I purchased that truck in 1979, it was painted in a slightly lighter blue than the
D series and I hated it, so when it came to repainting, I figured it should be done in something a little more era-appropriate; after all, most old Bedfords were green with black mudguards, weren’t they?
The next restoration was my 1991 Mitsubishi Transporter, which coincidently was painted in more or less the same colour as the Ford when I bought it, but it was destined to become a similar shade to the Bedford.
Although, this time, the secondary colour became white, with the other slight difference being that the green was done in a metallic finish. Soon after came the FGK Morris, which has only been on the road for about three weeks now, in which we had another variation by introducing bright yellow to the mix, but still retaining a slightly lighter green on the lower panels.
Now with pressure mounting to get the D Series’ colour scheme sorted, I was almost considering painting the entire rig in the one shade of blue, even though every other truck in my growing fleet of oldies had been treated to varying combinations of green.
I know I’ve taken some time to get to the point of the Norton–Jonas–Christine lead-in to this story, but I’m here to tell you that they all helped to save the day. So, finally, here’s how it came about.
Neither Christine nor I have a lot of spare time to watch the television, but Chrissie does like to watch The Graham Norton Show, so I sat down for a coffee with her just as the Jonas Brothers segment came on.
While the penchant producers of the modern-day TV programmes have for fast editing didn’t give my ageing mind much of a chance to process what I was seeing, there was just one shot that was long enough for me to see an electric guitar painted in an eye-catching green finish with a contrasting silver on the lower half of the instrument.
So there I had it—the shot wasn’t even long enough for me to see what make of guitar it was, neither did it give me the time to see which Jonas brother it was—Kevin or Nick playing the instrument—however, it must’ve been long enough to give me the seed of an idea for the old truck’s colour scheme.
I asked Christine if she could rewind a few segments in order to get a better look, but she informed me it had gone, as we were watching it live this time round. Never mind, I reckon I’ve cracked it with this colour. I know it won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, and I still haven’t decided on the exact shade of silver/grey contrast colour yet.
Also, I still have to make a call on the colour of the roof. Although, I’ve pretty much settled on the idea of painting it in the same green as the rest of the cab. Besides, it will make for a lot less masking, which has to be a time-saver I reckon.
I had said in the last issue that I’d have the cab painted and most of the glass in, but unfortunately, due to no fault of my own this time, the photos of the glass in place will have to wait until the next issue, as Jeremy from Bespoke Auto Glass has had a small operation performed on his shoulder, which has put him out of action for the next couple of weeks.
But still, we do have a shiny coat of paint on part of the cab, which should give a decent enough impression of what the finished product will look like. In the meantime, I’ll be cracking along with some mechanical work, which sadly won’t add much photographically to my progress, but nevertheless needs to be done.
Find more trucks for sale in NZ
Keep up to date in the industry by signing up to Deals on Wheels' free newsletter or liking us on Facebook.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
