Hi Wayne, thank you for asking, and I agree, I like my truck too
"Albert" is a Canadian built right hand drive 1926 TT with a New Zealand locally made cab and deck.
Most Model T cars and TT trucks brought to New Zealand are Canadian built – under the “buy British Empire” tax rules that applied at the time which taxed US products very heavily. Albert is no exception and is a typical Canadian built TT from 1926.
Unlike the Model T car, TT trucks did not receive the full “New Beauty” face lift introduced in 1926, but stayed with 1925 body components through to end of production in 1927.
Little is known about Albert’s early history. While he is largely “unrestored”, he has been “renovated” over the years with parts replaced/painted/repaired as required, but aiming to retain his patina.
Albert bears traces of an original coat of grey paint and of wear marks on the cab and deck consistent with being used as a “ladder truck” or similar. We think perhaps he was a Post Office lines truck, or maybe a Metropolitan Electricity Department vehicle, and possibly hails from Wellington. Unfortunately, few records are available and we may never be able to trace him back to his “birth”.
The cab and deck use a lot of New Zealand White Pine, which is a soft light wood. This wood is not known for its longevity, but even so most of the wood work appears original, or though quite a few deck planks have been replaced (again using new milled White Pine).
I added the under deck boxes (one each side) to tote things like spare fuel cans, rags, a jack, tools and my lunch as there is not much room in the cab for anything other than two squeezed in adults.
Like many Ts, Albert has one door only, being the passenger side as there would be no easy way to exit from the driver side given the size of the cab and the levers.
Accessories added include indicators and brake light (for safety sake in modern traffic), a foot feed (very helpful when changing gears with hands full of levers
) and of course an exhaust whistle (just because I could
).
The arm on the cab side with the yellow hand was a legal requirement for trucks so that following motorists could see when you were planning a right hand turn (across the traffic here) or stopping - you pull the end of the lever and the hand rotates up to a 'stop' signal. The longer arm was to make sure the 'hand' was visible beyond the load you were carrying.
Albert has a 'high ratio' diff with a Ruckstell unit, meaning he has a Ford direct ratio and an underdrive. To speed things up we have installed a Ford AA truck underdrive unit - which fits in the drive train behind the gear box - but we turned it 180 degrees, so it acts an an overdrive instead. The shifter connects to a second hand brake assembly set back a little from the actual hand brake (see photo below). It is probably a little too high geared but by running the Ruckstell in low and the overdrive in high we get a pretty good ratio for road driving. Interestingly the AA unit is made by Ruckstell as well!
The over drive is shifted by a lever mounted next to the hand brake lever, the cab looks impressive with all these levers and with some practice it is fun to change up the 8 gears while pretending to be a large Mack or KW !
The photo below shows a very similar TT in Upper Hutt, heading over the Mangaroa Hill Road to the Mangaora Valley with is where my family settled in the 1840's. While we will never know, we think the driver is my grandfather who often drove his neighbour's TT for him. The Stewart Vee Ray on the truck inspired me to find and fit one on Albert too. It is a lot brighter than the standard head lights
The similarity of the cab design suggests that both Albert and the pictured truck may be built by the same local company. It was usual for local coach builders to fit out the TT chassis and this further suggests that Albert was a local Wellington lines truck too.
Yes, Albert does get used around the place to do various jobs: