• The 1957 Diamond T Model 921BN was the first truck in the museum to be powered by a diesel engine.

• Ordered new from Diamond T trucks, this truck was used by Ledingham construction in Vancouver.

• Used to haul excavators , cats and loaders to job sites.

• Supplied with a winch to haul disabled equipment onto the trailer.

• The Ledingham family started contruction in Vancouver in 1905 building concrete sidewalks and roads.

• Expanding into Excavation with a steam shovel, they dug the excavation for the Hudson Bay building downtown.

• The truck was sold at auction in 1969 and found many years later and restored to as new.

• The truck was finished in 2009 and in 2014 he drove it to Yakima for the big ATHS show.

On October 23 2017, the BC Vintage Truck Museum accepted it’s latest donation, a fully restored 1957 Diamond T Model 921BN. Donated by Bruce Ledingham, he tells us his Dad ordered it from Diamond T is Chicago and looked just like this when arrive in Vancouver. Bruce restored it exactly as it was delivered and he always had a soft spot for this great truck and he even was a spare driver for the truck back in the day.

GW Ledingham & Company Limited used the Diamond T to pull a low bed to move excavators , cats and loaders that needed to be moved.

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The winch was on there to pull any disabled equipment onto the trailer.

Ledingham was in the underground utility business, water, sewer gas power telephone anything buried underground. Grandfather George started it 1905 doing concrete sidewalks and streets in the  Point Grey municipality at the at the time. He had been a superintendant  for the municipality Point Grey and then went on his own in 1905. His stamp is still in the sidewalks of some Point grey and Dunbar Sidewalks. Later on he got into excavation work. There is a photo of him by a steam shovel and teams of horse and belly dump wagons going down into the excavation of the Hudson Bay building downtown Vancouver at Seymour and Georgia.

Dad took over and switched it over to underground utilities in mid 1940’s after Grandpa passed away on the job. Dad was apartenr in BC COncrete who were making concrete pipe. He sold out after he wanted to retire and because he had two partners it was easier to liquidate and split the money. He lent his two sons money to start their own business. In 1969. Ritchie brothers auctioned off all the equipment and Bruce remembers asking Dave Ritchie who bought the Diamond T as it was his favourite. It went to a logging contractor up the sunshine coast.

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He remembered that 15 years later when he was looking for the truck and found the logging road company who bought it and it was owned for 5 years before going to  Powell River Paving . To find the truck he put ads in the Gibsons, Sechelt and Powell River papers and described the truck and that it was sold in 69 at a Richie Brothers auction.

Out of 7 or 8 responses he got the first guy to buy it and was told it went to Powell River. The second owner could not remember who bought it. He asked his drivers and finally it was determined to have been sold to a Shake log contactor in South of Powell River. Bruce headed up there and asked around and found the owner located out in the bush squatting under the transmission lines living in a shack.

Made a deal with him and headed back up there to pick it up. They  got it running and it had an extended chassis and a flatdeck on it in 1983. The truck was in rough shape, a big hole in the passenger side window, no muffler, fender propped up on the brackets with 2×4’s and 2or 3 brakes  and drove it to Langley from Powell River. He was a partner in and made it to CanAm equipment and truck wrecking and rebuilding.

To find parts he advertised in “Wheels of Time” and got one response from Port McNeil and it was in a gravel pit in Port McNeil and after giving the finder a finder fee he brought it home. His dad old lowbed was now owned by Marpole Transport so he borrowed it and had two 988 Loaders that picked it up and put it on the lowbed.

Over 15 years he dabbled at restoring it and had it at many shops starting with his son’s machine shop then at triple B’s shop in Rosedale and then after it was running it went to a truck paint shop in Port Kells.

The truck was finished in 2009 and in 2014 he drove it to Yakima for the big ATHS show.