Nice pair!

This week saw the final stage of the second Jeep’s restoration. The 1943 Willy’s MB is now finished and registered with the rather splendid registration number, 635 YUD. (Plates not yet fitted!) I took the Ford Jeep up to Matt’s place in Matlock to collect it and took the opportunity of leaving the Ford behind for a new coat of paint. It has been finished a couple of years now and we made the mistake of using a matt finish sand yellow. This has absorbed moisture and caused some surface rust. This will be cleaned off and a couple of fresh coats of 15% gloss applied for that eggshell finish that should repel water. This paint came from The Paint Man - a chap who really knows his paint and also owns an LRDG Replica Jeep, based on a Hotchkiss. Purists may argue that we have placed the condenser can a bit far back, but the LRDG did not have to worry about headlamp efficiency and an annual MOT test - plus, we think it looks a bit neater set back into the grille a couple of inches.

Over the last few weeks Sam, John and I have discussed revised dates for the LRDG Expedition, postponed due to the unsettled nature of North African politics right now. We are pleased to announce our LRDG trip through the vastness of the Western desert will now be Easter 2012. this should give all the displaced North Africans a chance to find their way home and leave the Desert available for adventure.

A good read.

In light of the chaos and mayhem in North Africa we have taken the regrettable decision to postpone our Expedition to Egypt. Rather than risk ourselves and all the vehicles it seems sensible to delay until maybe later these year, or early next year. This will give Egypt a chance to elect a Government and, hopefully, stem the flow of fleeing exiles from Libya. In the meantime we shall work hard to reduce costs in an attempt to make the trip more affordable and research more sights with the help of this excellent book that arrived this week.

Incident at Jebel Sherif, by Kuno Gross, Roberto Chiarvetto and Brendan O’Carroll is the definitive book on the Long Range Desert Group and a must for all those interested in the subject. It is informative, based on the exhaustive travels of the authors and historical reports from those brave men who fought with the LRDG. The book is well illustrated with current colour photographs and original black & white pictures taken at the time, supplemented with copies of old documents.

I shall enjoy reading it as North Africa settles down to some kind of status quo.