When teacher and ex-truckie Tony Barton would look out the windows of his classroom, he often spotted the same 1962 Leyland Comet cruising back and forth on the roads.
This went on for years — until one day, there was no sign of the truck.
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Tony couldn’t shake the thought of it, so he did what any determined enthusiast would do — he hunted it down.
“I made a few inquiries, found the truck and went out to have a look at it,” he says.
“The owner gave it to me with enough fuel to drive it home.”
Tony said he’d always wanted to restore a truck, especially a Leyland, admitting he has a soft spot for them “regardless of all their foibles”.
And this one certainly had plenty of foibles. It was far past its prime, rusted, neglected, and barely holding together, but it was a Leyland, and for Tony, that made it special.
Having left his trucking days behind him quite some years ago, those mighty machines remained a passion of his.
“I turned my back on trucks in about 1978,” he says.
“That year, I went back to study and taught for the rest of my working life.
“However, I did keep my eye in with the occasional holiday trip with, or for, friends and family.
“I started off as a trade teacher, then ended up as a school careers teacher for over 20 years.
“But I never, ever lost my love for trucks.”
Tony’s vision was clear. He was going to restore this butchered truck, despite a tight budget and three kids still in school, his desire to breathe new life into this rig outweighing all practical concerns.
What followed over the next 13 years was nothing short of a labour of love.
“I was given other Leylands for parts and pieces to make up this truck,” Tony says.
“It took three complete trucks to make the one because of its age and rust.
“The Leyland Comet was a fairly light truck, but they absolutely punched above their weight and were worked to death.
“They often worked until they were not much more than scrap value.
“I wanted to restore it because they were so popular, but they’re way in the past now, and it was a bit of a tribute as well I suppose.”
Having to work on the truck from the ground up, Tony says he lost count of the rolls of MIG welding wire he put into the cabin, and full G size of Argoshield.
He says everything down to the last nut and bolt had to be refurbished, but he had an army of friends and neighbours to help when needed.
“I could never have done it otherwise, without the generosity of so many people,” he says.
At the heart of this truck was a commitment to authenticity, and while it has been lovingly restored to its former glory, Tony made sure to keep it grounded in its roots.
“I’ve tried to make it a reflection of what it was when it was working,” he explains.
“It looks nice enough, but it’s not a showpiece.
“I’ve tried to keep it original and looking as it did when it worked, but it has been painted back from bare metal.”
The truck was never meant to be a workhorse, but a way to honour a piece of the past and to showcase at truck shows.
Tony’s love for Leylands began when he was working as an apprentice at a Leyland dealership, but in the 60s a new range came out filled with “duds”.
People stopped buying and things were challenging for some time, so he left and went to another garage to finish his apprenticeship, and luckily Leyland work followed him.
“I’ve had a soft spot for Leylands since I started working for them,” he says.
“There were quite a lot of them in the industry, pulling semis on stock, general and timber, and quite a lot of them logging in the bush.
“That’s why I did mine as a little log truck, as a reflection of that.”
Despite their reputation for reliability, Leylands were abandoned as the years passed, fading into rust and forgotten metal. But Tony’s fascination lingered, even after stepping away from trucks for years.
So, while the Leyland trucks may no longer carry timber or logs through the Australian bush, they now carry the stories of many former truckies like Tony, who has brought an iconic machine back to life.
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