Milk Float Influence

Nicknamed Ernie, we discover this custom-created T5 pickup won’t be doing the early morning milk round any time soon

- Rob Howkings

“Why’s it called Ernie dad?” enquires Toby Stowe’s daughter Sally as we are about to photograph a stunning-looking one-off pickup that began life back in 2005 as a humble T5 Chassis Cab with a 1.9-liter diesel engine under the bonnet. “The fastest milkman in the west,” replies Toby, who’s the man behind the campervan conversion company T4Life and the owner of the custom project seen here, that took an amazing three years to complete and involved a wide range of specialists.

Anyone over the age of 50 will probably know what Toby is referring to—the title of a song, which comedian Benny Hill performed on his show back in 1970. It was about a milkman with a horse-drawn cart and the song was released as a single in 1971, whereby it made it to the number one spot for a staggering four weeks over Christmas.

Volkswagen never made a T5 pickup, the nearest being their Crew and Chassis Cab models, which could be equipped with a range of rear outfits to create a tipper, box van or car transporter, but never one like this.

“It all started with a local farmer scrounging used steel wheels for his worn-out 2005 Chassis Cab T5,” recalls Toby, who kindly donated the wheels to him. “After a year or so and half a dozen wheels later, I joked 'I own half of your truck!' to which he replied, “it's for sale.'” Toby was tempted by the cheap and worn-out flatbed Chassis Cab because he could immediately see a use for it in turning it into something a little special.