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This page: Introducing Henry Pirie's fine old Austin, built at Longbridge in the late 1940s.

Austin K2.

Henry's sent over a number of older b/w photos of his time working for garages already. Here, he introduces his post-war Austin K2 lorry, a type popular with post-war hauliers and a keen rival to Bedford in the medium-sized commercial vehicle market. In fact the Austins were known as "Birmingham Bedfords" back in the day. His flatbed example dates to 1949, and is something of a TV star as he now describes.

1949 Austin K2 Lorry - FAV 634.

This lorry was bought new by Mr George Tocher of Newton Croft Bucksburn on the 20th of May 1949 from Aberdeen Motors, whose garage was in North Silver Street at that time. He recalled that it cost about 500 GBP, painted and sign written. It was used for collecting pig swill and taking pigs to market until 1967 when the new plating regulations came into force, so he drove it into an old shed and left it there having just over 46,000 miles on the clock.

On the 7th of February 1981 I bought it from Mr Tocher still in the shed, by this time the shed was rather derelict but the lorry was in reasonable condition, but the engine was seized because of the time it had been left standing. I left it there until we freed the engine and got it going and finally, on the 25th of April 1981, we took it home and started to restore it. After a lot of hard work during the summer it was ready to attend its first rally, so loaded up with a Ferguson we set off for the Mearns Rally at Drumsleid Farm Auchenblae on the 4th of September 1981. From then on it was shown at many rallies and road runs, stretching from the Mearns to Inverness sometimes winning prizes.

On October 1991 we were hired to appear in film "Salt on our Skin" and filmed at Gardenston and New Aberdour, the first of many. The next appearance was at Blair Atholl on August 1992 for the BBC programme "Strathblair". On October 1992 we went to Auchtermuchty for the Austin's first of many appearances on "Dr Finlay" as the wholesale butcher's lorry in the first series working for STV. The next appearance on "Dr Finlay" was on August 1993 again in Auchtermuchty, this time as the roadmending squad.

In the third series the lorry was filmed at three different locations with the "Irish Potato Squad", the first being Auchtermuchty, then Dunblane and latterly at Carnwath Lanarkshire during the summer of 1995. The next venue was at Strontian near Fort William, where the Austin was hired to a French film company making an advert for Nestles "Yes Bar", loaded with eight sheep and three children. This was filmed on April 1997 and should have been a quick job, we left on Monday night and came back on Friday night.

The next hire involved a long haul up to Durness working for Wild Cat Films as a greengrocer in a short film called "Vivid", shot down on the sands near Durness. There was panic as the tide came in, ending the shoot and the lorry having to be towed off the beach.

In about 2002 the lorry was hired to appear in a film called "Young Adam" starring Ewan Mcgregor and shot on location at Renfrew Ferry Glasgow, again appearing as a greengrocer's lorry. The last appearance for the lorry was for a Swedish TV company on location near New Aberdour in August 2003. On this occasion it was portrayed as a gun-runner's vehicle for a Swedish detective series.

To date it still is a low mileage vehicle with the clock reading about 52,000 miles.

Other K-Series lorry references on OCC.

K2s and K4s crop up on a number of other pages across the site, including the following:
Austin used with the Canal Army Bus Service in Egypt.
An abandoned K2 in Australia.
Parts ad page.

Read more owners' stories in the Your Cars section of oldclassiccar.

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