In the summer of 75 Promotor had a wide load for delivery somewhere in Yugo. Steve Smith was given the job and decided to take his wife Sandra and young son Bill along for the ride. Bill can be seen bathing in the washing up bowl and he liked it so much he now spends a lot of time in the pool. Well, he does live in Spain so it’s the best place to be. Thanks to Bill and Sandra for the photos.
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Here’s a photo of a Promotor vehicle I’ve not seen before. We had the job of pulling this trailer to County Shows and the like for, I think, the RNLI. This photo was taken by Steve Smith, so I assume he got roped in at some stage in the mid 70’s. In the late 70’s of very early 80’s the Land Rover had been replaced by a similar model except it had a smaller engine that was gutless. I was only called upon once to drive it. I did the pullout from the Royal Cornwall Show in Wadebridge. Now this trailer was quite heavy and I remember it seemed to take forever to get out of Cornwall. Luckily for me I was living in Dorset so could break my journey there before the final leg back to Kent.
I think this was the Coastguard caravan (see text one side). The Landrover I drove had HM Coastguard on the side too (a magnet for Police who considered I was one of the “men in uniform” part of society).
One of the first jobs I did for Promotor was one summer driving the Coastguard caravan on the back of a really under-power long wheelbase landrover to stay in various Cornwall and Devon seaside resorts for a week or so to remind holidaymakers to wear lifejackets at sea, hand out literature and other things likely to prevent their early demise. This ensemble would pick up huge huge traffic queues as I negotiated the tiny lanes dragging along my overly heavy caravan. Driving on motorways faster than about 40mph was positively dangerous as the caravan would start swinging.
The driving part of this job was positively unpleasant. However, standing around all day getting a sun tan at beach resorts chatting up the tourists was very pleasant indeed.
The Civil Service department (DoI) who ran the job sent me urgent message each day about literature for the stand and he told me to call him every single day. I duly called for very long and tedious calls about how much literature there was still available. I thus learned to call during his lunch hour every day to say that I had plenty of literature still to give away. His youth in the office took the message efficiently and without the long dull conversation.
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The attached photo was taken by Steve Lacy in 79 in Alzenau in Germany. It seems he and I were on a British Leyland job at the time. Unfortunately the photo’s not very clear nor are my recollections of being there.
Here’s another photo of our old mate Steve Smith, in the centre, enjoying yet another Efes. Not sure of the other two guys but the one on the right could be Roy Cloake. Roy was a Promotor subbie in the late 70’s and I think his lorry had the name Cannonhaul on the headboard. Must see if I have any old photos of him.
As many of you will know I have rather a lot of photos of both Promotor lorries and men associated with the company. There are some I don’t have including Bill Took and a few more pre 78 when I joined the company. Another one that is sadly lacking is Dave Boulding. One of him stood beside his lorry would be nice. Maybe Efes can help me out there? I have a few names from the Ford era but find it difficult to put names to faces as I left the company a couple of years into the Ford contract as it wasn’t my scene, however, I have been given a photo of Tony Blackman by Bill Smith taken by his father Steve Smith. I can only assume they were sharing a room in an hotel as there’s no lorry in sight.
In the early 90’s the Ford Motor Company was in trouble. Old models, falling sales and unhappy investors and so a new model, a world beater was needed. It came in the shape of the Mondeo. It was at this time Promotor picked up a contract to look after their fleet of promotional vehicles. We were entrusted with around 150 cars and vans, this number fluctuated as new models came on the scene. Our very first big job was to prepare a number of Mondeo’s for a film shoot in Israel. Many of the Ford suits wanted the filming to be done in the States but when the accountants looked at the figures that idea was dropped. The Ford hierarchy was however very concerned that Promotor, a new untried company to them, wouldn’t be up to the challenge. We went out of our way to dispel their fears. We prepared the cars in our workshop at Childerditch near Brentwood. The two main car were a cutaway and one that we sprayed in silver. I mean we sprayed everything that showed. From the windscreen to the tyres. It was completely silver. The third car was a standard factory finished car. As some at Ford’s were worried that transporting the vehicles to Israel was a risk to far I, as a Promotor Director, decided to travel down with them. We had no problems of course and once in Tel Aviv I flew home and left the three lads, Tony Blackman, Steve Smith and Graham Bertram to do whatever was required by the Israeli Production Company. We also flew out a mechanic as there was some technical work that only he could handle. I have shown my photos of our trip down here on Trucknet in the past but it’s only recently that I have been given some more photos by Steve Smiths family which show the filming in progress. The theme of the film, which was for a TV ad campaign, was to show the two cars converging them merging into the finished article. I saw and recorded the ad but unfortunately it was lost many years ago. I have tried to find it on You Tube etc but though I have found the two cars converging I’m sure it’s not the same one as I thought originally they appeared from a dust storm. A couple of Steve’s photos show large fans so I’m sure I’m right. If any one can give me a link to the original ad I would appreciate it. It was the very first Mondeo ad and had Brian May singing ‘Every Thing I do’ (is driven by you) as the theme song.
Tony Blackman on the left with Graham Bertram and Steve Smith on the right in Bari waiting for the ferry to Greece.
Steve Smith on the left with our mechanic with the cutaway.
As requested…
Keep it up, interesting thread 
It was said by someone that when filming in the desert, you could fly a helicopter to erase all footprints for a second take of a scene. But in the snow nothing could erase footprints so any second take had to made elsewhere.
Is this the one?
Really interesting story BTW.
I think it must be, however, I still think the cars appeared from a sandstorm. Perhaps there were two versions.
The road from just north of Damascus to Baghdad took you across the Syrian Desert. Its condition had deteriorated by the late 70’s and was in bad need of some new ‘Black Top’. In the photo above of the two Mondeo cars converging, that was all new tarmac road built specially for the film shoot in Israel.
The attached photo of the crane shows the state of the road across the Syrian Desert. It wasn’t very pleasant to drive on and at best quite dangerous.
In the early 80’s the road was resurfaced just before I took the next photo.
The counterweight on the Coles Crane John Preece drove to Baghdad fell off - somewhere at the bottom end of Turkey - and sank about 1m deep into the road making a huge hole. He managed to operate the crane to pick the weight up again and carry on… The road wasn’t so easily fixed.
I drove a Coles Crane from Newcastle to Zagreb fair. I must say I didn’t much enjoy it. I think elsewhere on here I explained it broke down halfway out of the entrance to their factory and they said it was nothing to do with them because I had left their premises (how I love those “jobsworths”. Grrr). I had to explain that technically I was still on their property to force them to come and fix it. Altogether very shoddy of them I thought.
I also had to deliver a US truck to Poland that had an elevator on it for loading aeroplanes with cargo. Another horrid thing to drive that barely managed 35mph with no sound proofing. Very primitive indeed.
John Ward aka Welly Ward.
Bob Keen.
Possibly Trevor Thayre.
Trevor Thayre on the left.
Ron Hart.
Have spent hours transferring some of my old photos from USB sticks to iCloud as I’m sure they are deteriorating. I’m going to post some of the photos again as I’m sure there are new members who haven’t seen them before.
I don’t subscribe to the ‘Tnuk is dead let’s bury it’ idea but have to admit there are far far fewer viewings since the new format was rolled out. We know some of the old regulars have disappeared or only pop in now and again. There could be many reasons for this not necessarily that they don’t like the new format. Perhaps they can’t be bothered anymore or feel they have nothing more of interest to contribute. I have always tried to post something interesting but am finding it more difficult to come up with new material. I find the new Tnuk fairly easy to use but others, I am sure, hate change so don’t try anymore. Perhaps when Tnuk first came on the scene, when was that 2005? it had difficulty getting started. Maybe we just need to be patient and wait for a new breed of contributor to share their stories, photos and little anecdotes. I hope they don’t think you have to be from the 70’s or 80’s era to join in.
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I posted this photo on here a few months ago with Promotor drive Steve Smith in the centre. I thought the driver on the right could be Roy Cloke, a Promotor subbie.
Recently I posted four photos on various F/B sites asking for help identifying the drivers.
This photo is Roy on the drums.
This photo is of Roy more recently.
And this photo is of Roy’s Transcon painted up in Promotor colours.
Today Roy saw the post on F/B and confirmed it is him on the right but also said the guy on the left is John Bishop another Promotor driver. This is the first time I have seen a photo of John although his name has cropped up a few times.