Gerald I hope this does not mean the end of the orange Ute. Now just remember you started the stories about road trips to and from race meetings.

For the 1973'74 Formula Ford season my brother Don and I were both running FFs and we decided in our wisdom that we needed a "proper" transporter to carry our two cars around. For $80 I bought a 1952 K model Bedford (for the historians: ex Tai Tapu Dairy Co, sorry I can't remember the chassis #), a walk through truck in the style the Poms would call a pantechnicon. We raised the roof, put in opening windows and ramps for two FFs together with "sleeping accomodation". We pretty much lived in that truck for the main part of the season.
After an early Manfield round I had to fly to ChCh leaving Don to bring the truck and cars back to Hamilton. The trip of course didn't start until the end of meeting festivities had finished and was going well until the Desert Rd when the thing ran a big end bearing. Figuring there was little to be done in the dark, Don had a couple of hours sleep in the truck then set to work on the side of the road in the morning, droping the sump (still full of oil as he had no suitable container) pulling out the offending con rod and piston and puting the sump back on. While diligently cleaning up as all good mechanics do, he discovered the hose clamp intended to block off the crankshaft oilway lying on the ground so had to repeat the whole process. The engine ran on the remaining 5 cylinders, after a fashion, the vibration at anything over idle was pretty fierce but he was mobile.
The engine's overall condition hadn't improved when the bearing ran and was going through oil at an alarming rate and combined with some oil loss over himself during the roadside "repairs" he urgently needed more oil. He drained the oil from both FF's oil tanks, then both gearboxes and continued on.
At some stage during the following night both tyres on the left rear picked up punctures, partially due to their condition but also because being a considerate motorist he was keeping well left. Quickly jacking up the rear, a flat tyre was put on the inside on both rears and he continued.....
Finally some 36 hours after leaving Manfield the outskirts of Hamilton were in sight and he began to think he would actually make it home until an elderly gent on a bycicle passed him and told him the other "good" rear tyre was also going flat. At this point he walked the rest of the way to the Crockers for a bit of a hand.
The good news is that we bought another K Bedford, parked it on the newly formed roads of an upmarket Hamilton subdivision as my mother unreasonably refused to let us park it outside the house and swaped motors. At the end of the season I sold the truck to a hippie who intended to convert it to a house bus and bought a Mk4 Zephyr tow car.
Little did I realize that our days of repairing cars on the side of the road was just getting going!