JCB has restored a vintage 1964 backhoe loader to its former glory for one of its longest standing customers.
Lincolnshire-based Eric Carnaby & Son has been a customer since 1959 and over the following six decades has bought more than 150 JCB machines. JCB has now repaid that loyalty by restoring the Carnaby family’s cherished 1964 JCB 1 backhoe.
The project was kept a closely guarded secret until George Bamford – grandson of JCB Founder Joseph Cyril Bamford – sprung the restoration surprise during a visit to the company’s base in Immingham, near Grimsby, to collect the machine. Now six months later the backhoe has been handed back to the company after a team at JCB’s World HQ in Rocester, Staffordshire spent hundreds of hours restoring it.
“My family and I are over the moon with the restoration,” said Eric Carnaby & Son director Roland Carnaby Junior. “Our JCB 1 is precious to us and we’ve been meaning to restore it for some time, but you know how it is – a business to run, and all that!”
Founded by Eric Carnaby in 1946, the plant hire and road haulage firm is now run by father-and-son team Roland Carnaby Senior and Roland Carnaby Junior. The company’s first JCB purchase was a JCB 4 backhoe in 1959 and this formed the backbone of the Eric Carnaby & Son fleet for many years to come – with up to 12 in operation during the 1970s and 1980s. Around 95% of the Eric Carnaby & Son fleet is now made up of equipment from JCB, which marks its 75th birthday on October 23.
“It has been amazing to see an old machine brought back to life by the JCB team,” said George Bamford. “It looks just as it would have done on the day it came off the production line in 1964.”
