Price Is Right

Andrew Prices Scania T500 has undergone some major changes in the past year, but it works hard and turns heads wherever it goes

- Dan Parton

For many people on the show truck scene, the week before a show involves a lot of time and work getting the wagon ready. But for Andrew Price, getting his Scania T500 ready for the NASSA Gathering in Kingswinford, West Midlands, over the May Day bank holiday weekend was a special effort – and it meant he kept a promise.

Andrew had told his friend and fellow haulier Brian Rowland he would have his truck ready for the show, which was raising money for the Midlands Air Ambulance in memory of Brian’s late son, Tom.

“I promised Brian I would have it done and I wouldn’t let him down as Tom was a mate,” says Andrew. “I barely slept that week. We were working round the clock on it. We were lacquering the bonnet at something like 10pm on Thursday night and we finished it.

“Then I went home, hooked up the trailer and took some of our old classic lorries as well to the show.

“There is nothing worse than trying to rush something at the last minute, especially something like that. You’re rushing but you know you can’t rush – things that normally take five hours to do you’re trying to do in four and a half, but you still have to do them right. And it came out well.”

Back to the beginning

This wasn’t a case of fitting light bars and polishing; the whole truck was revised, with the body being converted back to a tractor unit from a rigid.

“We took the original body off ourselves at our garage and then took it to Chassis Engineering in Stoke who basically cut the back end off it and moved the axles forward, put the fifth wheel back on and then it came back to us,” says Andrew.