Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Classic & Vintage Commercials

The 2023 Basingstoke Festival of Transportwill be held in its usual venue the Basingstoke War Memorial Park on Sunday May 14. In the past this event has been a joint promotion by the Thornycroft Society (Thornycroft lorries were of course made in Basingstoke) and Basingstoke Deane Rotary. It is now, though, a100% rotaryevent though it continues to attract strong support from the local –and not so local – commercial vehicle fraternity. The show opens to the public at 11.00am and, very unusually these days, public entry isfree, though a £5 charge (cash or card) is made for using the car park which is accessed from London Road and opens at 9.00am. Basingstoke 2023 promises once again to be a bumper show with 860 vehicles, 70 stalls and refreshments available all…

This is afascinating tale of an unusual, indeed unique, vehicle that once operated in the fleet of Wellingborough based Chettle’s Ltd who specialised in the collection of waste products from abattoirs and poultry packers. In a recent interview, former Chettle’s employee and lifelong transport man Tony Sales from Rushden recalls the amazing story. Here’s his account in his own words. “In 1967 I started work at Chettle’s when they ran a fleet of mainly Commer vehicles plus three BMCs and aBedford TK artic. They also ran several vans and some lighter Ford vehicles. All the Commers except one were bought secondhand. The BMCs were purchased new from the main dealers in Biggleswade. They proved to be very unreliable in service which prompted us to look around for something more reliable.…

Bedford’s new normal control truck range, the A-Type, or TA (‘T’ for Truck) was launched in 1953, replacing the essentially prewar bonneted K, M and O-Series lorries. The new A-Type was modern in appearance and clearly inspired by American truck designs. The radiator grille had three painted thick horizontal bars, with headlights mounted at the outside of the front panel. The front bumper stopped in line with this front panel, making it look a bit like the ends were missing, although this was revised on later versions. The cab had a split windscreen. The A2 had a 25cwt payload, the A3 three tons, A4 four tons and A5 five tons. There was also the A4SS tractor unit. A petrol engine was standard, with a Perkins P6 diesel optional on the…

I enjoyed Peter Davies’ exploration of the Leyland Marathon and thought you might be interested to see the prototype he referred to under the heading “an AEC in almost all but name”. The transparency of T25.02 in Stanwell Moor Road was given to me in the mid-1970s when I was collecting material for what was supposed to be a Marshall, Harris & Baldwin book on AEC but which never appeared due to the sad demise of Prince Marshall. With T25.02 came contemporary photos of 3VTG outside the Southall works and at Leigh Delamere. As you can see, this has a distinctive American style with a hint of Australian Atkinson and was maybe a Marathon or even a Crusader. The latter seems unlikely as Scammell had settled on the familiar Motor…

Jamie Newton has, in his own words, “always liked lorries” and has over the past decade built up a significant collection numbering, at the last count, 19 vehicles. What’s more, unlike some collections, pretty-much everything here is in fully showable condition rather than major projects awaiting a restoration that might or t en. Cons quentl wh n o y, and he finances it all; there’sno multi-million pound haulage business behind it! He does, though, have strong support from his wife Louise and 15-year-old son Marshall, of whom more alittle later.Heisalsoassisted on the practical and driving side by longterm friend and associate Scott Usher, and is also fortunate in having plenty of space, and undercover storage. So, without further ado, let’sstartour look around this extremely impressive collection with some blue oval…

Increases in UK legal weight limits in 1964 saw the introduction of 32ton artics and this helped spur several European manufacturers to launch their products onto the British market. British manufacturers were struggling to supply enough 30- and 32-ton tractors to meet demand. Acorresponding market decline in mainland Europe led some leading manufacturers to focus on the UK as away of expanding sales. Among them was the German maker, Magirus, whose first attempts to establish aUKbase were not all that successful. Magirus Deutz had tried to enter the UK in the early 1960s, appointing aconcessionaire based in Ashford, Kent. CL&HLBlundell formed anew company called Magirus Deutz (Concessionaires) Ltd based at Brunswick Road on Cobbs Wood Industrial Estate. The first product line-up consisted of fixed-cab 14-ton and 16-ton gvw forward-control fourwheelers,…

Iattach some photos of Kings Lynn Mart transport this year.Hope some of them may be suitable for the magazine. Grahame Bacon Thank you Grahame –good to see some Fodens in particular still in fairground service.…

The annual Jolly Boys Road Run took to the roads of Derbyshire in early October with Bakewell again being the starting and finishing point. The route was different though, with some of the steeper climbs being avoided due to road closures and works, but that didn’t detract from the run itself, with some spectacular scenery still to be enjoyed. Once again Carl Mellon and Natalie Liddle were the organising force behind the event, with Natalie also being the administrator of the run’s Facebook page, which is worth a look at in itself.…

As most of you are probably well aware, the London Ultra-Low Emission Zone is set to expand later this year, to cover pretty-much everything within the M25, and meaning owners of cars and light commercial vehicles which do not comply with the stringent emission rules have to pay at least £12.50 a day to drive within ‘the zone’ – for larger vehicles the costs have been much higher for some time. Don’t assume that this is a purely-London issue either; Birmingham and Bristol already have similar schemes, Glasgow’s is coming in June, and Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee have schemes that will start charging in 2024. There is, though, one way around this, and one which is quite interesting for enthusiasts. If you choose a pre- 1973 light commercial vehicle, then…

So-called Smart motorways remain in the news, and with the time approaching when more and more people will be travelling long distances, it seems appropriate to remind readers of the possible dangers of using them with older vehicles. In essence, Smart motorways replace the continuous hard shoulder with an extra running lane – to improve capacity and breakdown laybys known as Emergency Refuge Areas at 2km intervals. Additionally, the motorway is supposed to be watched continuously by control-room staff, so that if a vehicle does get into difficulty on a running lane, the appropriate lane closures can be put into place swiftly. However numerous organisations including the RAC Foundation and ROSPA have major safety concerns about these roads, and there have been several reported cases of injury or even deaths…

Looking back and reminiscing is a common enough human pastime. We naturally cherish happy memories and enjoy re-living the past especially so in the world of transport. A lot of such memories exist only in our minds so it’sareal bonus when can look at real period pictures of our favourite lorries and fleets. Over the past few decades the UK haulage scene has changed so much in every way.Here’s another selection of pictures from those far off days when British lorries ruled the roads.…

Ihave to admit to a personal interest in the heavy haulage firm of Sunters, who were based in Northallerton for many years. I was born in the North Yorkshire town, and from my childhood can remember Sunters’ vehicles slowly negotiating roundabouts on the High Street with their enormous loads. A few of their vehicles have made it into preservation, so when I heard about Simon Howard’s superb Scania 110 6x4 tractor unit which has recently come onto the rally scene in their colours, Ihad to have a look. This particular Scania was never actually part of the Sunters’ fleet. However it replicates day cabbed 110 6x4s DPY185L and OAJ288M that were. Simon’s Scania is registered XMJ 891L and was ordered on October 17 1970 by Les Searle &Son of Horsham.…

In the 1920s, the General Post Office began using motorised vans, mostly made by Ford. There was some opposition to this, as although they were assembled in Manchester, Ford was American owned and some people regarded them as too ‘foreign’ for a British government department to be using. From 1924, the GPO tried out a few Morris vans with 70 and 105cu.ft. bodies, and from 1927 onwards, Morris became the favoured supplier, a situation that continued for several decades. 8cwt and 10cwt Morris Cowley based vans and oneton Morris Commercials were followed by the 5cwt Morris Minor based mailvan. Morris introduced their 5cwt Minor van in late 1929, fitted with an 8hp, 847cc overhead camshaft engine. The GPO didn’t buy any of these, however, but in 1931, twelve Morris Minor…