Paying out for a visa? How things have changed since the Aussies were pleading for anyone with a Pommie passport to go there, deadbeats and all.
I had a slight problem with immigration at Darwin airport because they wanted to test a leather belt I had bought in Iraq. I told them it wasn’t important and to keep it and scrap it but the bloke shook his head saying, ‘you are British, which means you are Australian, and as such entitled to enter this country with all your possessions’. I don’t know what they did to the belt but only 10 minutes later pronounced it OK and I was in, a hobo with a bedroll and a 5 pound note, and nothing more.
Nice mate, and you know which was my favourite of course, the B model.
Was that a future sleeper for it on the front of the trailer? If it was waiting to go on that I reckon he’ll need to stretch the chassis a bit.
But hang on a minute, what was that blue and white one next to the 1950 Inter? Not exactly beautiful, but interesting. He obviously didn’t approve of it and moved on quickly past.
International S Line, basically a normal control T Line, both honest performers, not quite premium but not far short.
This only seems to cover the North American versions, we didn’t get the smaller versions and there were considerable variances in models from each market.
They could be specced ,within limitations, similarly to a premium truck, but lacked the price tag, build quality and accoutrements of a premium truck. I liked the S Line, the cab was full width with room to hold a party in.
The Marathon apparently was BLs answer to the British version of the F88 240.It was launched in '72 ish i think. Leyland wasted £millions on the Gas Turbine the AEC V8 and the headless wonder. The Marathon was designed on a shoestring and to be fair the AEC engineers did a pretty good job bearing in mind the circumstances. Build quality was poor , brakes cab ride and heater were the main criticisms but all could have been rectified much earlier than they were. The engine was the modified AV760 which was turbocharged.The tooling used for the engine was spent and wasn’t replaced. Leyland didn’t have the funds to replace the tooling but the engine gave a good account of itself performance wise and was economical compared to its rivals. The Marathon 2 launched in '78 was much improved and had RR265 Cummins 250 & 290 options. This was a stop gap model because the T45 was taking so long to develop. They were an average motor comparable to similar SAs ERFs and Fodens of that era. Apparently Volvo uprated the F88 to 290bhp shortly after the Marathon was launched , the TL12 pushing out 272bhp.
They were a marmite lorry . Production was switched to the Guy works at Wolverhampton then Scammell at Watford after AEC Southall was closed. They did offer a 335 Cummins option early on
I would imagine the turmoil within would have been a big factor and of course money. They were throwing all profits from the commercial side into the car industry blowing money left right and centre. The finished article in launch form was nothing more than a fleet motor with a rest cab. The Leyland rear axle and the Spicer box were 2 other strange additions.
The much more popular Fuller would have been a better option and also maybe a ZF 16 speed synchro because they were trying to compete with the europeans. The Marathon was a test bed for the T45 (Roadtrain) but they stuck with the suspect back axle and prefered to go with Spicer for the box. Some very strange decisions. They brought in Ogle to design the cab .After a few years they dropped the TL12 due to manufacturing costs and the need to replace the antiquated machinery used in production and used Rolls Royce and Cummins thereafter. I’m not sure if they stuck with the Spicer but with the bigger Cummins 350 they were apparently a good tool. Daf eventually upgraded the cab and put their engine in and a ZF box i think , but the writing was on the wall by then .The range from 7.5 tons to 32 tons (Roadrunner to Cruiser) cabs had an uncanny resemblence to the cabs Daf and Renault shared on their rigids much later. Sorry to bore you with my ramblings .I’m in a queue waiting to load
The spirit of TNUK used to be (before this new-fangled modern version) that older generations than mine would carry on a bit and I (and I daresay others) would learn a thing or two.
You mentioned Ogle Design and that rang a bell so did a bit of interwebs and came up with the Reliant Scimitar. I once drove a lorry with a Spicer box and once only - given I was used to various ZF synchro boxes it was different but at least I’d had a go (once) in a DAF with a Fuller. I remember the Roadrunner quite well, but they never sold as well as well as the Cargo in the 7.5 ton market. All that disconnected rubbish aside, I well remember seeing many a T45 on the roads at the time and their lesser cousins (Constructors &c)
There was a short documentary on tv around the launch time of the Roadtrain. I always remember they had some “full of his self” driver doing a test drive review and he was laughing because he was too quick changing gear and he “was beating the box” … roughly translated to he couldn’t drive it. I never had the misfortune of driving a Spicer but at the time they were rare over here so not many would know them and instead of being open and admitting he wasn’t sure he blamed the box for his lack of knowledge.
There was a designer on the same programme banging on about ( his words not mine ) how they tried to keep the sausage shaped features throughout the cab. He meant the front panel had sausage shaped cutaways so they also incorporated them on the dash.Maybe important attention to detail was what held the whole process up. If only they had put more effort into more telling factors they could have been on to a winner
