Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i Classic & Vintage Commercials

Brothers Matthew and Simon Martin are both ex-removers, and six years ago they bought a 1984 Bedford TK750 Vanplan Integral Pantechnicon with the intention of carrying out a full restoration. Now, unfortunately, due to changed circumstances and loss of their restoration workshop, they are in need of help. Ideally, they would like to contact someone in the Bristol area with the skills and facilities needed to help them complete the job. Failing that, they would be willing to pass it on to a good home where the restoration can be completed. The vehicle was new to Selfridges who at one time had a removals business alongside the retail side, and when the former closed, they continued buying similar types of vehicle for use on shop delivery work and moving stock…

Electric or diesel? The pressure is on from environmentalists to phase out diesel and go all-electric. There’s a bit of each in the following pictures but, at the time I took these shots, electric propulsion was confined to the likes of milk floats while diesel ruled in the transport industry. Doubtless in years to come diesel will gradually be phased out but that’s going to take many years. In the meantime let’s look back some four decades and enjoy a few nostalgic images from the diesel era.…

We welcome photos of older lorries (15 years and older) that are still in ser vice for publication in this section. We can accept contributions by email – cvc.ed@kelsey.co.uk, or by post to The Editor, Classic & Vintage Commercials, PO Box 1243, SPALDING, PE11 9HE. Please provide as much (or as little) information about a vehicle as you are able and, before entering or taking photos on private property, please ensure that you have all the permissions that you need to be there, and to be taking photographs.…

It was a new location for the HCVS Yorkshire area ‘Bring your vehicle day’ which took place at Drax Sports & Social Club. The event had primarily been organised by Graham Reed of Reed Transport, whose vehicles have graced these columns before. At the start of the day there was some uncertainty as to how many vehicles would actually turn up, but as things turned out there was no need to worry, with around 40 entrants on site by the time heavy rain enticed many to make the trip home. Here are some of the highlights.…

Whilst browsing through some old photo albums. vintage model enthusiast Jim Williamson from Maddiston near Falkirk came across a photo of a 1949 Leyland Steer with a Leyland 600 engine in the livery of R WStewart, Livestock Haulage Contractors, a family-owned firm founded at Drum Farm, Bo’ness, West Lothian by Robert Wilson Stewart who returned from the army at the end of the First World War and started the company from the farm in 1920. It immediately sparked Jim’s memories of summer holidays spent in the 1960s at Drum Farm Bo’ness, home to the Stewart family who at that time owned the Steer, a 1953 Leyland Beaver with a 600 Leyland engine, a 1960 Leyland Hippo with a 600 Leyland engine, a 1965 Leyland Lynx with a 400 Leyland engine…

Thirty years or so ago I was at the West of England Transport Collection’s open day at Winkleigh wartime airfield in Devon where I saw a compound full of brand-new Leyland Comets. No, these weren’t the bonneted beasts of the 1950s but the latest tough with no-frills export Comets introduced in 1964 that resembled beefed-up Roadrunners. I asked show organiser Colin Shears what these Comets were doing there and he explained that they were being fitted with winches and other specialist equipment by Reynolds Boughton, who operated from a massive hangar next door. My only dealings with this firm had been when compiling the Observers’ Book of Commercial Vehicles and they had year after year in the 1970s and 80s sent me details of the massive crash tender chassis they…

As regular Classic & Vintage Commercials readers may recall in the January 2017 issue, Classic & Vintage Commercials main cover-feature lorry was my restored AEC Militant timber tractor. At the end of that, Peter the Editor included a photograph and mention of my other Militant, which at that time was under restoration, and included with the picture a promise to return once the restoration was complete, though I gave no promises how long that might take! Now, Five years on, that’s all happened… It was actually about a year before the timber tractor’s appearance, in the December 2015 issue of CVC that I spotted an advert for a Militant for sale, spares or repair, and quite near me. As I was looking for some better tyres at the time, I…

The Pride of Longbridge event, which celebrates all things BMC, BL and so on, and which takes place opposite the site of the former factory at Crofton Park, Birmingham, made a welcome return on Saturday April 23. POL is one of the major events in the Leyland cars world, and always strongly supported and usually attracts a certain amount of support from the light commercial vehicle fraternity. Here are a few that we spotted on the day……

Last May, a friend of mine sent me a photo from the Truckfest show in Peterborough. Knowing I was due to attend the following day, he said: “You’ve got to see these,” and he was right. The photo showed an amazing line-up of a four restored eight wheelers; a Magirus Deutz 232, a Foden Haulmaster S83, a Foden 4300 and a Hino FY275. Eight wheelers are not the most common lorries you’ll see at shows, because very few are restored, so to see four in a row was an incredible sight. The Maggie and Hino were certainly new to me; I’d never seen them before, mind you, very few had – this was their show debut. Buying and rebuilding, let alone looking after, a tractor unit tends to be that…

Many hauliers choose to name their vehicles as well as giving them fleet numbers. So-called ‘named fleets’ have always attracted a lot of interest among enthusiasts, none more so than Pollock (Scotrans) Ltd, the owners of this superb DAF3300 appropriately named ‘Flying Dutchman’. Formerly known as ‘Pollock of Musselburgh’, the famous haulier became Pollock (Scotrans) Ltd in the late 1970s. The company was absorbed into Gregory’s Distribution in 2021 but has, thankfully, retained this traditional livery. Peter J Davies…

In late 1959, BMC announced their new FG truck range. Different front panels/grilles were fitted to Morris and Austin badged versions. The forward-control cab design was in some ways ahead of its time, the wraparound windscreen and low-level corner windows allowing the driver to see the kerb and manoeuvre more easily. Rear hinged doors were set back at an angle so that when opened, they only projected a couple of inches beyond the load platform, so passing pedestrians weren’t hit in the face and less space was needed to get out of the cab in busy urban streets. BMC officially referred to it as “angle planned,” but the FG soon became commonly known as the “thrupenny bit” cab, which, for younger readers’ benefit, was named after the angular 3d (threepence)…

What is believed to be Britain’s first brand-new tractor designed expressly to suit impending uprating of gross train weights was introduced by Scammell Lorries Ltd at the Commercial Motor Transport Exhibition at Earls Court, London on September 20th. This new Scammell model is called the Crusader and is a three-axle design for articulated work at gross train weights up to 42 tons.” Thus read Scammell’s proud showtime press release of 1968. In the late 1960s British lorry manufacturers were plagued with uncertainty, not sure whether or not there was to be an increase in the UK maximum legal gross weight. Possible gross combination weights (gcws) of 38, 42 or even 44 tons for 6x4 tractor units were rumoured but the government was seemingly forced to hold back on any such…

Last month, as part of our ongoing series of features marking the centenary of Scammell Lorries, our cover starred Nottinghamshire based Darron Wilson’s 1976 Scammell Crusader. However, that is not the only lorry Darron owns, and the Scammell is frequently seen at shows etc., alongside something rather different in many ways, but not in others. We’re referring to 988UXU, a 1950 Mack LJT that spent its working life in America, and is preserved in, basically original condition. The Mack is powered by a Cummins 200 engine with a ten-speed ‘twin-stick’ box and carries the chassis number of LJT1D 9638D. Mack Trucks Historical Museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania confirm that the vehicle came off the assembly plant production line at Allentown on September 26 1950 and upon completion the chassis was assigned…

Last year, in our June 2021 issue, we reported on how a group of local history enthusiasts had dug a WW2-era ‘Buffalo’ Amphibious Landing Craft out from a field where it had been buried under 30ft of Lincolnshire clay for nearly three-quarters of a century. Since then, much has happened, and a sensitive restoration of ‘Buffalo 47’ back to running order s now well underway. First, though, a brief recap on how, exactly, it came to be buried there. Back in March 1947 a combination of high winds, heavy rainfall and still melting snow from the famously-harsh winter of 1946-7 led to the River Welland bursting its banks near Crowland, a small town in the South Lincolnshire fens. A large area of South Lincolnshire and North Cambridgeshire as far south…

Gulp. I’ve just been sorting through some of my SD archive material and came across a photograph of the 1922 SD Freighter (which had just been restored by the company), together with a brand new ‘TYR Series’ Revopak municipal vehicle. It’s a ‘K-Regger’ destined for delivery to Blaydon Council and the shot underlines the fact that, by 1972, Shelvoke & Drewry had been in business for 50years. Why the ‘Gulp’? Well, it was me that lined-up that shot, having driven both vehicles out from SD’s ‘Number Two’ factory in Blackhorse Road, Letchworth. And as we’re now talking about the Centenary of the company, it means that photograph was taken almost 50 years ago. And just to illustrate how weird things in life can be, on the shelf in my office,…

The design of the flat-sided Commer Walk-Thru van was based on American vans of the 1950s that allowed the driver to easily exit the van from either side. Rootes Group launched it in October 1961 at the Commercial Motor Show at Earls Court, replacing the BF. 1.5-ton versions had single rear wheels, whilst two- and three-ton versions had twin rear wheels with a projecting rear wing. Engines were a four-cylinder 2260cc or a six-cylinder 2965cc petrol unit, or an optional Perkins four-cylinder diesel. With the latter two, a projecting grille and additional bonnet bulge were required. Some were badged as Karrier (particularly if sold to local authorities), whilst later ones wore Dodge badges following Rootes’ being gradually acquired by Chrysler (who already owned Dodge) between 1964 and 1968. UK production…