Clacy & Sons Series IIA 109 Recovery Truck.

Clacy & Sons ran the garage at Whitchurch in Hampshire for decades, and in 1968 bought a new Series IIA 109 to build into their breakdown truck. It was given an extended cab with side windows, a Harvey Frost hand-operated jib crane on the shortened bed, a winch on the front bumper, extra front lamps and flashing roof lights, and signwritten in cream on the bronze-brown body: CLACY & SONS, BREAKDOWN AND RECOVERY SERVICE, TEL. WHITCHURCH (025682) 2168, M.O.T. & SERVICING. It stayed with the garage for its whole life, unrestored and on its original logbook, until Bonhams offered it at auction in 2020.

The Bonhams catalogue photograph, taken in the garage yard, is the reference: brown Series IIA with a limestone roof and extended cab, the crane in red on the bed, spare on the bonnet, an amber light bar and spot lamp on the roof, galvanised bumper with winch, cream-painted wheels, the signwriting along both sides and the VPB 28F plate offset on the front. The registry model reproduces that vehicle in the Breakdown group.