A long-standing JCB customer has received a vintage backhoe loader – restored to its former glory – to mark the manufacturer’s upcoming 75th anniversary.
Lincolnshire-based Eric Carnaby & Son has been a customer since 1959 and has purchased more than 150 JCB machines since then. To show its appreciation, JCB has restored the Carnaby family’s cherished 1964 JCB 1 backhoe.
The project was kept a secret until George Bamford – grandson of JCB founder Joseph Cyril Bamford CBE – sprung the surprise during a visit to the company’s base to collect the machine. Now six months later, the backhoe has been handed back after a team at JCB’s World HQ in Rocester, Staffordshire spent hundreds of hours restoring it.
Eric Carnaby & Son director Roland Carnaby Junior said, “My family and I are over the moon with the restoration. 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!”
George Bamford said, “It has been amazing to see an old machine brought back to life by the JCB team. It looks just as it would have done on the day it came off the production line in 1964.”
Founded by Eric Carnaby in 1946, the plant hire and road haulage firm is now run by father-and-son duo Roland Carnaby Senior and Roland Carnaby Junior. The company’s first JCB purchase was a JCB 4 backhoe in 1959 and it was the JCB backhoe loader which formed the backbone of the fleet for many years to come – with up to 12 in operation during the 1970s and 1980s.
JCB marks its 75th birthday on October 23.
