They were not made with longevity in mind and as a pontoon with a truck chassis hanging out the bottom there are loads of rust traps. Used to be 10's of these at the stores near Tewksbury, where they auction them off. Many were already duff and I remember seeing one, newly acquired, barely leaving the Thames in time, as the weakened areas failed in action. They do not have great freeboard. They are notorious for being hard to restore. There was a pink one for sale for ages for around £54k. Not sure it was not on the Mersey. A pink one used to be at Wickstead park. I believe there are several at Morecombe bay somewhere in case they can get to stranded people. They have Argo too. However if your in a really unstable area even these cannot get out as they get stuck and the suction of the sand is quite dramatic enough to swamp the rescuers. Part of the reason the Chinese immigrants sent out cockling could not be rescued. Nasty business. A rare sight now, is a DUKW.
As Al says above,
But things like these are much easier to restore now.
friend of mine runs a scootershop in Weston and also owns a DUKW, after a ride on the Thames a few years ago he was so hooked on them, he came back and home and bought one.
Owning a scootershop and metal fabrication shop he tasked the workers with a full bare bones restoration over the winter, and ended up with a nigh on concourse DUKW.
Recently the only stray from factory is a 12v conversion for better starting, lights and cheaper battteries.
I was tasked with fitting the tyres, and after 60 odd years on the rims, they were troublesome to say the least :-/
When the problems of new panels arose, he tasked the fabricators to fabricate, and spares were made and are now sold world wide,
On the back of this he is now doing a healthy business in GPA restoration, fabricating spare parts for them and has also just imported another 10 Willy's jeeps to restore/sell as is.
He also owned for a while, and I had the pleasure to work on and drive for a bit a Schwimmwagen, that was amazing fun, if a bit cramped.
I am glad the DUKW's aren't being blamed for the sinking just for being old, and hope they continue to tour the waterways and roads for all to enjoy.
Just my garbled 2 penneth
