Vintage tractor lovingly restored by father and son
A vintage tractor that was almost completely destroyed in a fire has been lovingly restored by a father and son from Toomevara.
The Massey Ferguson 35, believed to have been first registered in 1961, had a good innings of almost six decades when it was burnt out in a shed fire.
But the old lady has been brought back to life and restored to its youthful looks, thanks to the efforts of Roy Kennedy and his 18-year-old son, Colin, who have spent the past two years working on giving their mechanical cadaver a second life.
"You would laugh if you saw the state of the tractor when we first got it," Roy told The Guardian. "There was absolutely nothing left of it after it was in a shed that went on fire."
Roy, a vintage machinery buff, thought it would be a lovely "father and son" project to restore the tractor. And so they set to work together, scouring the country for spare parts and returning home to put all the bits and pieces together to make the skeleton of a vehicle look almost like new again.
The Kennedys, who live just off the rather salubrious sounding 'Golden Mile' stretch of the old N7 on the Nenagh side of Toomevara, did such a tremendous job restoring the tractor that it is now more than capable of travelling the entire length of the country and back without a hitch.
And as if to prove this, Colin had planned to drive the Massey Ferguson from Toomevara to Killarney last month to help raise funds for research into prostate cancer.
His intention was to join members of the Nobber Vintage Club when they arrived in Toomevara on their annual tractor run from Meath to Killarney and travel around the Ring of Kerry. But, alas, the event had to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Yet, while the old tractor won't see Kerry this year, Colin has already collected a nice sum of cash from people who were only too delighted to support victims of prostate cancer. His intention now is to present that sum to the organisers of the cancelled tractor run for their cause later in the year.
But the story does not end there because it seems the joy of getting stuck in to such a protracted bonding project seems to have made an indelible impression on Colin who now wants to pursue a career as a mechanic after graduating from Borrisokane Community College later this year.
It's just a fulfillment of the old adage: "the best thing that you can spend on your child is time".
Indeed, such was the joy that father and son got from the project that Roy, who is a self proclaimed "Jack of all trades", revealed that he and Colin have now begun a second restoration project on another rundown vintage vehicle.
But this type of work all comes naturally to Roy whose pride and joy is his self restored 1985 white Ford Lincoln car parked and adorning the driveway of his home.
He is a committed member of the the Nenagh Classic Car Club and he drives his coveted Ford to all their events.