About six years ago, the Home Installs team was doing a large kitchen reno for our customer, Roger Trumbley, who agreed to allow us to keep some material in his garage during the project. When he opened the garage for Joe Nymeyer, our Home Installs Manager, there sat a 1951 Chevrolet pickup in mint condition. Joe told him it was a great truck and it turned out Roger was looking to sell it.

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Roger had heard about the truck from a friend about 25 years ago, and drove from Southampton to Sarnia to have a look. It had been sitting abandoned behind a barn at a lumber mill and actually had a tree growing up through the transmission tunnel into the cab and out an open window! The owner of the mill told him they had attached a belt drive to the rear axle and that was how they ran the mill for 12 years. Some time later, it was moved behind the barn, where it sat when Roger came to see it.

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"If you can  move it, you can have it"

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The owner said to Roger, if you can move it, you can have it. So he went to town, bought a bow saw and carefully cut the tree out, piece by piece, eventually freeing it. He then trucked it up to Southampton, where he did a complete restoration.

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3 years later, the lumber mill owner happened to be in Port Elgin for Pumpkinfest, where Roger was showing the truck. He recognized it immediately and told Roger that he was very happy to see it restored to it's original form and that his dad would have been so proud to see it like that.