Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i Classic & Vintage Commercials

The Spring Tractor World and Classic Commercial Show, at Malvern’s Three Counties Showground, is taking place over the weekend of March 11/12. As usual, the main commercial vehicle day will the Sunday, and this show usually attracts a wide range of commercial vehicles large and small, along with cars, tractors, stationary engines and so on. The event is sponsored by Kelsey Media, and our portfolio of tractor and commercial vehicle magazines. Sunday-only commercial vehicle exhibitors do not need to book in – just turn up before 9.30am (the cut-off for vehicle movements on site) and park up as directed. Visitor discounted advanced tickets (£13.50 for adults per day, £20 for the weekend, under 15s get in free) can be ordered from www.tractorworldshow.co.uk or by calling 01697 451882, and commercial vehicle…

With reference to Parry Davis’s Scammell R8 as featured on the December issue front cover, what a great restoration, exactly how they used to look in the 1950s! I remember travelling from Wiltshire to Lancashire in my dad’s holiday-luggage laden1934 12 HP Armstrong Siddeley when we were tailgated by an unladen BRS R8 all through the Golden Valley near Stroud. Try as he might my dad could not shake the R8 off; it was so close I could see the driver and mate clearly laughing at us and waving us out of the way. My mother became very anxious but she need not have worried because at the first opportunity the Scammell swung out and proceeded to overtake us before disappearing in the distance in a cloud of diesel fumes!…

With reference to the Bedford S type in the October issue of Classic and Vintage Commercials. During my formative years in the mid-1950s there were plenty of these around; tippers and flats abounded. I grew up in a large village in the Scottish County of Angus and every summer for a few years the old established surface dressing road contractors H VSmith & Company would establish a temporary working base next to our home firstly with steam Sentinel tar sprayers and then, yes, you’ve guessed it, a couple of S Types with Ashurst are spraying equipment mounted on them. They had petrol engines; I’ve no idea what model of engine and understand the Bedford S Type was fitted with at least six types. I do, though, remember the deep roar…

We welcome photos of older lorries(15 years and older)that are still in service for publication in this section.We can accept cotributions by email-cvc.ed@kelsey.co.uk, or by post to The Editor, Classics &Vintage Commercials, PO Box123, Salding, PE11 9HE.Please ensure that you have all the permissions that you need to be there, and to be taking photographs.…

This year’s NEC Classic Car Show over the long weekend of November 11-13 was, as usual, the main indoor show of the classic car season, and if, as many think, the show marked the end of the 2022 season, then it certainly went out on a high! And while it didn’t seem to us as though as many one-make car clubs were exhibiting car-derived vans and similar alongside cars, there was certainly no shortage of stuff here to interest and appeal to classic commercial enthusiasts. Here are a few of our highlights……

This is the issue of CVC that will be out in time for many of you to read over Christmas. And it therefore seems highly appropriate, given that for many families, watching TV is now an integral part of the celebrations, that this month’s main feature is a wonderfully restored late-sixties television Outside Broadcast Unit. Indeed, given the current propensity for showing classic repeats over the Christmas period, and the fact that this particular vehicle was in service for over 20 years, it wouldn’t be that surprising if something it was involved in the making of appears on the screen again… Dr Paul Marshall is an avid collector of old/period Television equipment – he has masses of the stuff! He is also Chairman of the Broadcast Engineering Conservation Trust, a…

ERF’s A Series was introduced in 1971, having been previewed at Earl’s Court the previous autumn. The new modular design featured a 34 tonne gross tractor unit equipped with either a six-cylinder Cummins or six or eight-cylinder Gardner engine. A 38tonne European version was also available with a Motor Panels tilt cab. Two new chassis had appeared at Earl’s Court. These were the 4x2 and 6x4 units, with a wider spring base and improved roll resistance. The frames were also capable of handling all ERF’s current crop of engines. By standardising ancillary units like the fuel tanks and air reservoirs, a wide variety of chassis types and lengths could be made with virtually identical layouts forward of the rear-spring front hangars. Much was expected of the new A Series, and…

I recently had the good fortune to visit Summit Garage in Dudley to meet up with Sales Director John Newey, who, like the business, is very much into MG-Rover and MG products. Summit Garage is a family run business founded in 1945 by Robert “Jack” Newey and his wife Olive, and occupying the same site today as it did then. My interest, however, was their recently restored 1994 Maestro van, which besides being one of the very last, has been owned by Summit garage from new. I’ll return to that aspect in a moment. First, though, a potted history. Austin Rover announced in April 1984 they would replace the Morris Ital van with Maestro-based van. The Maestro van was to have an increased payload over the Ital, and became one…

We ended up last time with some strange foreign cabs on familiar British chassis (notably Atkinsons) so I’ll kick off this time with a look at Pelpel one of the few French cab makers, to have been chronicled by the Berliet Foundation. It was started by Gaston Pelpel in 1931 after a couple of years of experience with a coachbuilder called Chataignier in Rennes, Brittany. By the end of the 1930s, Pelpel employed 18 men making commercial vehicle bodywork. In the early post-war years he was bolstered by sales of air-conditioned offices in transportable containers to the American firm Schlumberger for petroleum research. From what Pelpel learned from these, he embarked on a contract to build Bernard’s lorry cabs in 1952 and was also contracted by Willème and other premium…

If you have a News story, e-mail cvc.ed@kelsey.co.uk or write to The Editor, Classic and Vintage Commercials, PO Box 1243, Spalding PE11 9HE Adate has been chosen for the 2023 HCVS London to Brighton Commercial Vehicle Run, which will now take place on Sunday May 14; but only if sufficient new helpers come forward to enable the event to be run safely! A new start-point is also needed and being sorted out this issue went to press; we will of course bring you news of this as soon as we have it. The HCVS event was the first old commercial vehicle road run in the country, and of the many London to Brighton runs that now take place each year, it’s generally regarded as second in prestige only to the…

Bus and coach fans will no doubt be pleased to learn that The Harrington Gatherings, which for decades were held every five years, are returning in 2023 with a new host, the Transport Museum at Wythall. Founded in Brighton in 1897, Thomas Harrington Ltd was a highly- respected designer and manufacturer of bus and coach bodywork, whose iconic work included the distinctive dorsal fin bodies of the 1950s and familiar sixties coaches such as the Wayfarer and closelyrelated Cavalier and Grenadier which influenced significantly coach design for many years to come. The firm also produced the Sunbeam Harrington Alpine and, in conjunction with Doves of Croydon, the Triumph GTR4, both fastback GT conversions of popular opentip sports cars and both now prized highly by collectors and enthusiasts. The Harrington Gathering…

As explained in Part 1, Scania, who were used to building 3-axle trucks with lifting tag axles for their home market, did not at first offer a ‘rear-steer’ (pusher type) 6x2 to meet growing demand after 38tonne artics were permitted in the UK at the beginning of 1983 so it was down to the likes of York Truck Equipment to carry out conversions on 4x2s. In May 1983 York produced the first of many ‘rear-steers’, the earliest ones going to haulage contractor J Spurling of Silvertown in London. These had the outer axle spread extended from 3.1 to 3.8m and a Scania steering axle incorporated on steel/air suspension immediately ahead of the drive axle. On that axle spread it qualified for 22 tonnes gvw and could operate with existing tandem…

I should like to say how much I enjoyed, albeit with a heavy heart, your article on Carters Steam Fair. I was interested to see Atkinson reg. no. MHV539L. This lorry was one of two similar vehicles, operated by Powys County Council for many years on winter maintenance gritting and snowplowing duties. It was fitted with an Atkinson of Clitheroe 9cu. mtr. gritting body with front-mounted spinners and a 10ft snowplough. The two vehicles were purchased secondhand direct from the Department of Transport, having been on motorway snow clearance and gritting. They were very capable six-wheel drive lorries and a considerable improvement, comfort-wise, on the previous 20t GVW Atkis that they replaced. It is good to know that at least one of quite a large fleet has survived into preservation.…

The story of the Leyland’s eightwheelers begins in 1935 when the six-wheel Hippo gained a second steering axle. The Hippo was to be the basis of its most common wartime lorries, Keeping with Leyland’s ‘zoo’ names, Octopus was the obvious name choice for the eight-wheeler. Designated TEW, the pre-war versions gave way to the 22.O/1 and 22.O/3 models with totally redesigned chassis from 1947. It was in the mid- 1950s however when Leyland’s eightwheelers began to make their mark. They had a redesigned cab and a full 24 tons GVW for the 24.O/4 and 24.0/5 models. These used the Leyland ‘O.600’ 9.8-litre engine and saw the introduction of air brakes. The 1960s hailed the arrival of the allnew, all-steel, Motor Panels cab. Dubbed the LAD, it was shared by Leyland,…

The Simca 1100 was launched in September 1967 initially as a five-door hatchback, with a new design of transverse mounted engine. It was Simca’s first front-wheel-drive car. Front disc brakes were fitted. A three-door hatchback and a three-door estate car appeared the following year, plus a van version based upon the latter, as well as a pickup. A five-door estate arrived for 1969. The Simca 1100 Special of 1970 with its 1204cc engine could perhaps lay claim to being the first hot-hatch. The ownership history and naming of the firm is quite a complicated one. In the 1920s, the Société Anonyme Française des Automobiles Fiat, or S.A.F.A.F. distributed Fiat cars in France, and in 1932 began assembling the Fiat 508 as the Fiat-Française. In 1934, the Société Industrielle de Mécanique…