Brit's military legacy lives on in the states

By Robert Oszust

ANDOVER — Tucked away off Rt. 206, employees at F&J Auto Shop are reassembling a piece of British military history, all for the sake of keeping the memory of a man’s father alive.
Dave Hardy drove a 1942 Pioneer Scammell, a British military vehicle, for 40 years while stationed at the Royal Air Force Base, formally Boscombe Down. During his service, Dave Hardy and his family grew attached to the truck. Dave Hardy had planned to take the truck with him after retirement. However, the vehicle was, and is to this day, in service to the British military.
“[My father’s] idea was, ‘as I retire, I can’t take my big toy, so I’ll take my small toy,’” said his son, Martin Hardy. And so began the 12-year process of creating the 1/3 scale Pioneer Scammell, or “Baby Scammell” as the family came to call it. “He built this by hand, from scratch; the suspension, the mechanics, the engine, the whole shooting match,” Martin Hardy said.
Despite its deceptive size, the Baby Scammell is not a kit or model. It's made entirely of metal with four wheel drive, a four gear manual transmission, leaf spring suspension with a four cylinder gasoline engine, and tops out at 15 mph. Though it’s slow, the transmission was intentionally down-geared to mimic the towing power of the Pioneer. “We’ve actually had [the Baby Scammell] towing Land Rovers across fields,” said Martin Hardy.
Dave Hardy was stricken with a sudden and fatal heart attack in March of 2010, six months before his retirement.
“With all the history of the family, we couldn’t let it go,” Martin Hardy said. The Hardy family, who moved to the U.S. years prior to Dave Hardy's death, went back to Great Britain to retrieve the Baby and bring it back to the U.S. Customs laws prohibited the Baby to be brought back in one piece, as it wasn’t road worthy, so Hardy was forced to have the truck partially disassembled, shipped here, and reassembled by the team at F&J.
“Within the next month or so, we should be running,” Martin Hardy told the Township Journal. Though no formal plans have been made, Martin Hardy is setting up showings of the truck at local car and military shows. “If [my dad] knew [the Baby Scammell] was here in America with the big American trucks and the big four by fours, that would be the happiest thing ever,” said Martin Hardy.