5TH WHEEL SLIDER HITCH

Sunday November 24th, 1968.

Westow Hill, SE19, and this picture was taken on the same day as the others in my small London Sydney marathon set, where I went with many other spectators to wish godspeed to the competitors on their mostly overland journey from London, England, to Sydney, Australia.

This wee beastie, sporting a Swiss registration, was parked a little away from the action.
This car was registered in the Swiss Region [Canton] of St. Gallen, an area in the north-east of Switzerland, close to the Austrian western border. It is an area with nearly 20% foreign inhabitants, in other words "we ain't all makin' Swiss watches".
I have looked at all the othe flickr member pictures of similar cars, and this one stands out, probably because of the age of the picture, November 1968.
The car has no badges, other than the GT 350 decal along the side.
It has the standard wheels, I think that they are alloy, but appear to have the centre/center embellishers removed. The car has no Mustang emblem on the radiator grille.
I can see one bonnet pin mounting to the left hand side of the bonnet/hood, next to the right front wing/fender.
In UK we would call it the front offside wing, as we drive on the left hand side, so that would be the nearest side to the road centre line.
The car has a pair of circular mirrors added halfway along both front wing/fenders, but the drivers' door mirror has been removed.
These are the sort of mirrors placed where they are, to assist in vision, whilst towing a Caravan/trailer.
That's cool, if you want to tow anything at 130 m.p.h.
So, whoever owned this vehicle, was obviously in town for the Start of the London-Sydney Car Marathon, on that Sunday, just over 41 years ago.
Lastly, I can only guess, but this car is a 1965, or 1966 model, and was not yet 3 years old [maximum], when I took the picture.
If anyone has any further information, that they might add, then please do so.


scanned from 120 roll film B/W negative.

Flying out of Debden in Essex in a formation of 23 Mustangs all being ferried to Speke for shipment to the Far East this aircraft was destined not to make it .
Three aircraft descended through the cloud to attempt to get a fix on thier location one just clipped the ground but flew on managing to return to base , the formation leader on seeing the ground managed to climb to a shortlived safety , crashing into a hill a few miles away having another go at trying to discover his location. A site I have previously visited.
44-64084 struck the ground at Plainsteads Farm , near Glossop in the Peak District at 6 minutes to eleven in the morning. The pilots watch had stopped on impact.
The pilot who was unfortunately killed was

F/O Darnaby H. Wilhoit

He served with the 336th Fighter Squadron of the USAAF.

There is very little to be seen today at this site . We saw evidence of the crash , some scarring to the ground by a gate in a new wall and a bare patch a little further away which may have been the final location of the engine the ground there still remaining polluted enough to inhibit growth of vegetation to this day.
In vehicle tracks that passed through the gateway small fragments of wreckage could be seen . A few scraps of alloy , armoured glass, and a corroded rubber pipe .
The site is on private farm land and on talking to the farmer it was apparent that other interested parties had attempted to view the crash site .
Apart from one visitor most seemed to have cast thier net far and wide across the field network , with the farmer reporting a number of possible locations to us .
There is no doubt at all that we were in the correct location .
A non intrusive sweep with a metal detector indicated much more fragmentary wreckage would be found beneath the surface .
In this shot can be seen the small fragments found in the wheel ruts on top of a map.

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