“YELLOW EXPRESS DELIVERED GIRDERS TO THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE”

and a team got to work on a small forward control van with sliding doors. The 10cwt J type van was the outcome. Initially the J was to have a new flat-four cylinder engine to enable a very long cargo area but the accounting department said no and the ageing side-valve engine from the Morris Oxford was used. In 1948 a prototype was exhibited at the Earls Court Commercial Vehicle show and in ’49 another was displayed at the Geneva Commercial Vehicle Show.

Production of the new Morris J 10cwt van started in late ’49 with the export market a commercial priority. This goes a long way to understanding why Australia has some of the earliest J vans still existing. The earliest known complete van, a 1949 build and the 649th made, is in South Australia. Chassis plate J/R 478 resides in Tasmania and J/R 953, very badly rusted, lies discarded in southern Queensland. Packham’s Bakery, then in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville, owned two of the first three J types to arrive in Australia.

Also among the early users of the J was the Yellow Express transport company in Sydney. From 1926 Yellow Express was a major haulage company undertaking interstate services, heavy haulage and local parcel deliveries. Yellow Express helped transport Kingsford Smith’s dismantled Southern Cross plane and delivered girders for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Yellow Express were huge. For light deliveries in the ’50s & ’60s they used Morris J type vans.

For some years, Justin Lewis, who was running, Yellow Express, had been searching to replace one of their most iconic delivery vehicles. He has photographs in the company archives of Yellow Express van #7 at Mascot pictured with a Pan American Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. What better way to publicise the company? Eventually the sale of an interrupted restoration project came to Justin’s notice and he jumped at the chance.

Justin transported the van to Sydney and immediately dispatched it to Vehicle Color

ABOVE The body as found, a rusted shell. Unique to early export J vans is the steel floor clearly seen here as is the damage to the front. Best described as Seen better days or Has potential. RIGHT The complete renovated engine, gearbox and rolling chassis.