Didn’t think it was that bad.Very poor indeed.Looking at it now the UK has no industry left.
Newmercman is like a headmaster bringing his unruly school children to order, and he is right to do so. Unfortunately at times this thread like others before it, (and no doubt others in future), has degenerated into a morass of red herrings and completely unrelated topics. No names, no pack drill.
My original contention that the Marathon did what it was designed to, i.e. be a stop-gap model, seems to have been borne out by the vast majority of the knowledgeable posters. The driveline was fine but lack of money made the finer details of the finished product lacking. I do think that the TL12 proved that after the disappointment of the V8 740 / 800 engine then AEC could still design a successful engine. Should it have been built? Hindsight probably tells us no if the T45 could have been ready by say, 1975 or 1976 at the latest. Did the introduction of the Marathon actually delay the T45 development? Possibly it did.
I think that we also need to go back a few years into the 1960s and look at the Leyland group purely from the commercial vehicle side. Forget the cars and the vans and light commercials. When Leyland acquired AEC in 1962 it brought together the two heavyweights, and fierce competitors both at home and overseas, of British commercial vehicle manufacture, building both trucks and PSVs. Personally I find it very sad that some posters can be so derogatory of the history, heritage, and achievements of companies such as AEC and Leyland in their heyday. They obviously have no knowledge at all of the vehicles they made. Both were world class commercial vehicle producers, but times change.
Prior to 1962 Leyland had successfully incorporated Albion (noted for the quality engineering of its products), and Scammell, (very much a specialised, niche market vehicle assembler). AEC had acquired Maudslay (similar to Albion in the quality of its engineering of axles and gearboxes), and also Thornycroft, (again a high quality engineering company). Shortly after Leyland had started to get to grips with the AEC and its constituent companies then Guy came into the group. Guy was a smaller version of AEC and Leyland in that it was active in both PSV and lorry markets, but as an assembler rather than an integrated manufacturer. So just imagine trying to bring all these companies together into one organisation in the space of about 5 years, an impossible job on the commercial vehicle side, let alone when the BMC side came into the grouping with cars, vans, light commercials, and the BMC lorry range.
Then we need to look at the personalities involved. The powerful players came from the Leyland side with Donald Stokes and Stanley Markland competing for the top position. Stokes was a dyed-in-the-wool Leyland man who had made his name in sales and marketing, although he had served his apprenticeship on the shop floor at Leyland. Stanley Markland was the “company doctor”, or trouble shooter, credited with turning round the fortunes of Standard Triumph. Markland then went to AEC Southall and immediately instigated the development of the A471/505 and A691/760 engine ranges, the first major engine developments within the combined group. There is no doubt that Stanley Markland would have been a force for good at AEC, and probably for the entire group, if he had not been passed over for the top job in favour of Donald Stokes. When Stokes was appointed Markland promptly resigned. Apparently they hated each other. AEC people have always maintained that they were side lined for senior positions within the Leyland Group, but that’s not entirely true. Robert Fryars, an AEC lifer, was appointed Chief Engineer of the group.
Given everything that was happening then its a wonder that the Marathon got built at all, and even that the group survived for as long as it did. Probably the Marathon sums up British Leyland perfectly, it had its good points, but ultimately it fell short. Yes, the nearly truck of the 1970s.
Look at it the other way.The ford Transcontinental.Produced around the same time as the Marathon.All well respected proprietary parts and driveline.Yet this was seen as ahead of its time and so was a weak seller.A no win situation,i think its safe to say the marathon done a good job of what it was intended to do.
gingerfold:
Newmercman is like a headmaster bringing his unruly school children to order, and he is right to do so. Unfortunately at times this thread like others before it, (and no doubt others in future), has degenerated into a morass of red herrings and completely unrelated topics. No names, no pack drill.My original contention that the Marathon did what it was designed to, i.e. be a stop-gap model, seems to have been borne out by the vast majority of the knowledgeable posters. The driveline was fine but lack of money made the finer details of the finished product lacking. I do think that the TL12 proved that after the disappointment of the V8 740 / 800 engine then AEC could still design a successful engine. Should it have been built? Hindsight probably tells us no if the T45 could have been ready by say, 1975 or 1976 at the latest. Did the introduction of the Marathon actually delay the T45 development? Possibly it did.
I think that we also need to go back a few years into the 1960s and look at the Leyland group purely from the commercial vehicle side. Forget the cars and the vans and light commercials. When Leyland acquired AEC in 1962 it brought together the two heavyweights, and fierce competitors both at home and overseas, of British commercial vehicle manufacture, building both trucks and PSVs. Personally I find it very sad that some posters can be so derogatory of the history, heritage, and achievements of companies such as AEC and Leyland in their heyday. They obviously have no knowledge at all of the vehicles they made. Both were world class commercial vehicle producers, but times change.
Prior to 1962 Leyland had successfully incorporated Albion (noted for the quality engineering of its products), and Scammell, (very much a specialised, niche market vehicle assembler). AEC had acquired Maudslay (similar to Albion in the quality of its engineering of axles and gearboxes), and also Thornycroft, (again a high quality engineering company). Shortly after Leyland had started to get to grips with the AEC and its constituent companies then Guy came into the group. Guy was a smaller version of AEC and Leyland in that it was active in both PSV and lorry markets, but as an assembler rather than an integrated manufacturer. So just imagine trying to bring all these companies together into one organisation in the space of about 5 years, an impossible job on the commercial vehicle side, let alone when the BMC side came into the grouping with cars, vans, light commercials, and the BMC lorry range.
Then we need to look at the personalities involved. The powerful players came from the Leyland side with Donald Stokes and Stanley Markland competing for the top position. Stokes was a dyed-in-the-wool Leyland man who had made his name in sales and marketing, although he had served his apprenticeship on the shop floor at Leyland. Stanley Markland was the “company doctor”, or trouble shooter, credited with turning round the fortunes of Standard Triumph. Markland then went to AEC Southall and immediately instigated the development of the A471/505 and A691/760 engine ranges, the first major engine developments within the combined group. There is no doubt that Stanley Markland would have been a force for good at AEC, and probably for the entire group, if he had not been passed over for the top job in favour of Donald Stokes. When Stokes was appointed Markland promptly resigned. Apparently they hated each other. AEC people have always maintained that they were side lined for senior positions within the Leyland Group, but that’s not entirely true. Robert Fryars, an AEC lifer, was appointed Chief Engineer of the group.
Given everything that was happening then its a wonder that the Marathon got built at all, and even that the group survived for as long as it did. Probably the Marathon sums up British Leyland perfectly, it had its good points, but ultimately it fell short. Yes, the nearly truck of the 1970s.
The fact is Leyland Group was in a fight for its life during the production life of the Marathon.To stand even the slightest chance of winning that it needed a direct competitor to at least the DAF 2800 and later the Volvo F10/12 among others.
As for the car division BMC can be discounted as being in any way an asset to the Group at any point.Rover and Triumph being absolute key at this time with it being difficult enough facing the competition from GM and Ford in that sector let alone also having the BMW 5 series to contend with.So what did Leyland do,they axed their only hope in the form of the three box styled IRS Triumph saloon and replaced it with the SD1,Acclaim and the fwd 800. 
The rest is absolutely unarguable history.My case being that the government had decided to fix the fight by Leyland taking a dive in the second round.Although they did make the first round and just before the end of the second look good for the mug punters. 
Carryfast, one more mention of cars and I’m deleting the post. Get back on topic please.
Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk
Just to lift the spirits a little, just feast your eyes in this pageful of amazing photos of Marathons on Middle-East work 
! Robert
Nice find Robert,
Not good with German,i wonder if they are all complaining about the narrow cab and small steering wheel!!
Steve
ERF-NGC-European:
Just to lift the spirits a little, just feast your eyes in this pageful of amazing photos of Marathons on Middle-East work
Some cracking photo’s there Robert.great viewing.
David
Those are indeed great photos. They were put on the site by a chap who posts on here as Orientmack, I think. Hats off to him.
The driver cooking by the trailer box does not look like he needs an especially small steering wheel, despite his well-stocked beer cabinet 
. If I am right, those are 1 litre cans of Faxe lager.
Hope these work,from the first issue of truck magazine, the article suggests leyland are struggling with components supply and can’t get the mararhon production to full capacity.
Steve.
ERF-NGC-European:
Just to lift the spirits a little, just feast your eyes in this pageful of amazing photos of Marathons on Middle-East work
Great photos Robert,thanks for posting them
vwvanman0:
102Hope these work,from the first issue of truck magazine, the article suggests leyland are struggling with components supply and can’t get the mararhon production to full capacity.
Steve.
It`s interesting to read that Guy and AEC were selling the majority of BLs products with Leyland and Scammell doing poorly
ramone:
vwvanman0:
102Hope these work,from the first issue of truck magazine, the article suggests leyland are struggling with components supply and can’t get the mararhon production to full capacity.
Steve.
It`s interesting to read that Guy and AEC were selling the majority of BLs products with Leyland and Scammell doing poorly
Don’t forget that this Truck magazine article is only focussing on the 32 tons market. There were plenty of 4 wheelers, 6 wheelers, and 8 wheelers being sold. It’s really a very sloppy piece of journalism. Did ERF ever produce 2,000 B Series in a year? No they never had anywhere near that chassis assembly capacity.
gingerfold:
ramone:
vwvanman0:
102Hope these work,from the first issue of truck magazine, the article suggests leyland are struggling with components supply and can’t get the mararhon production to full capacity.
Steve.
It`s interesting to read that Guy and AEC were selling the majority of BLs products with Leyland and Scammell doing poorly
Don’t forget that this Truck magazine article is only focussing on the 32 tons market. There were plenty of 4 wheelers, 6 wheelers, and 8 wheelers being sold. It’s really a very sloppy piece of journalism. Did ERF ever produce 2,000 B Series in a year? No they never had anywhere near that chassis assembly capacity.
Taking your comments into account Graham maybe Leyland should have left AEC/Guy to the tractor unit market , but having said that Leyland were struggling with a reliable engine to power their own creations so maybe the main company in the group were the weakest link with Scammell as you`ve mentioned before concentrating on specialist productions. Surely the management should have noticed through sales alone what they should have been concentrating on and letting the seperate companies get on with what they were doing without interference obviously under the financial restraints the group had in place at the time
Funny how small that tiny Ergo cab doesn’t look parked next to an F88!Bloody impressive to be honest.
From 1972 through to at least 1975 there were severe problems obtaining spare parts. London Transport for example who had a predominantly AEC and Leyland fleet were in real trouble. They were in fact struggling to run services simply because they did not have sufficient buses available. The vehicles were on the fleet but literally hundreds were ‘unfit’. Canabalisation was taken so far that many vehicles ended up being scrapped because there wasn’t much left of them. This was in spite of their main chassis component overhaul works being only about 2 miles from the AEC’s factory. Part of the problem was that component suppliers like Simms were no longer in business. Other issues arose with the appalling unreliability of the newly introduced rear engined buses, the extra time their chassis layout added to repair times and the difficulty of obtaining and keeping sufficient skilled fitting staff who were simply overwhelmed by the workload. The situation was so bad that plans for the expansion of one man operation had to be abandoned and large numbers of their Regent III (RT) fleet had to be recertified for continued use, simply because these 20 plus year old vehicles were the most reliable vehicles on the fleet; capable of steering clear of the pits until the next rota inspection. Meanwhile six year old rear engined buses were being disposed of because they were uneconomic to keep running.
As an indication of how bad the situation had become, when my lorry’s clutch failed in Cheadle and was being fixed by the local dealer, our workshop foreman asked me to take a bus across to Gardners at Patricroft to see if I could persuade them to release a couple of sets of LXB piston rings. The answer was that not only could they not supply but they were unable to supply to their priority customer … the RNLI. Our fitters overcame the problem by machining the pistons to take Volvo TD10 rings which were the same nominal diameter.
cav551:
From 1972 through to at least 1975 there were severe problems obtaining spare parts. London Transport for example who had a predominantly AEC and Leyland fleet were in real trouble. They were in fact struggling to run services simply because they did not have sufficient buses available. The vehicles were on the fleet but literally hundreds were ‘unfit’. Canabalisation was taken so far that many vehicles ended up being scrapped because there wasn’t much left of them. This was in spite of their main chassis component overhaul works being only about 2 miles from the AEC’s factory. Part of the problem was that component suppliers like Simms were no longer in business. Other issues arose with the appalling unreliability of the newly introduced rear engined buses, the extra time their chassis layout added to repair times and the difficulty of obtaining and keeping sufficient skilled fitting staff who were simply overwhelmed by the workload. The situation was so bad that plans for the expansion of one man operation had to be abandoned and large numbers of their Regent III (RT) fleet had to be recertified for continued use, simply because these 20 plus year old vehicles were the most reliable vehicles on the fleet; capable of steering clear of the pits until the next rota inspection. Meanwhile six year old rear engined buses were being disposed of because they were uneconomic to keep running.
Coincidentally I was using the 65 route for work in 1975 and can remember the pleasant surprise when starting out one morning and finding the route had just been changed from its old RT’s,to the more comfortable RM’s as used on the 281 route from new.On that note I don’t think the RM was any less durable in service than the RT ?. With the RM’s then staying in service,on the 65 route at least,until 1986 which would have put them at well over 20 years in service at that point.Bearing in mind that the 65 and 281 were two of the longest,if not the longest,routes in LT.
ramone:
gingerfold:
ramone:
vwvanman0:
102Hope these work,from the first issue of truck magazine, the article suggests leyland are struggling with components supply and can’t get the mararhon production to full capacity.
Steve.
It`s interesting to read that Guy and AEC were selling the majority of BLs products with Leyland and Scammell doing poorly
Don’t forget that this Truck magazine article is only focussing on the 32 tons market. There were plenty of 4 wheelers, 6 wheelers, and 8 wheelers being sold. It’s really a very sloppy piece of journalism. Did ERF ever produce 2,000 B Series in a year? No they never had anywhere near that chassis assembly capacity.
Taking your comments into account Graham maybe Leyland should have left AEC/Guy to the tractor unit market , but having said that Leyland were struggling with a reliable engine to power their own creations so maybe the main company in the group were the weakest link with Scammell as you`ve mentioned before concentrating on specialist productions. Surely the management should have noticed through sales alone what they should have been concentrating on and letting the seperate companies get on with what they were doing without interference obviously under the financial restraints the group had in place at the time
I think that the BL management at that time could well be described by the synonym of “headless chickens running about”. 
A brief look at Ian Armstrong’s London Bus Routes reveals that the RT bus operated Route 65 from 5/5/48 until 19/10/75. I’m sorry i don’t know which route was the longest, both would be in contention I would assume. Some of the Green Line cross London routes had end to end journey times of several hours eg. 703 Wrotham to Amersham.
Both types of vehicle had experienced many teething troubles upon introduction to service, but by the 1970s this was long in the past. From a reliability aspect the RT was champion, folklore said that the only cause of failure in service was a puncture! The RM was as said a much more comfortable vehicle to ride in and was not far behind the RT for reliability. The chief cause of breakdown throughout its 50 years in service was alternator failure. Since the gears were electrically selected by an elctropneumatic solenoid a fall in battery voltage would result in a disabled vehicle.
LT’s troubles were exacerbated by their long term reliance upon the reliability of the Regent III and Regal IV with comensurate fitting staff levels.
With apologies for the digression.
gingerfold:
ramone:
vwvanman0:
102Hope these work,from the first issue of truck magazine, the article suggests leyland are struggling with components supply and can’t get the mararhon production to full capacity.
Steve.
It`s interesting to read that Guy and AEC were selling the majority of BLs products with Leyland and Scammell doing poorly
Don’t forget that this Truck magazine article is only focussing on the 32 tons market. There were plenty of 4 wheelers, 6 wheelers, and 8 wheelers being sold. It’s really a very sloppy piece of journalism. Did ERF ever produce 2,000 B Series in a year? No they never had anywhere near that chassis assembly capacity.
It also seems to have missed the point that Guy had taken on a large part of Crusader production from Scammell reportedly because Scammell predictably couldn’t keep up with demand for it.While production ‘capacity’ of the Marathon isn’t the same thing as the demand for it or for that matter whether production of it ever lagged behind the demand for it.As opposed to that definitely being the case in the case of the Crusader.In which case it would arguably be fair to say that while the Crusader started out at the design stage as a low volume product that isn’t how the market saw it.It would be interesting to see some figures regarding total production/sales figures of the Crusader v the Marathon.It’s my bet they might confirm my view that the Crusader was the better product and it was upgrading the outsourced model Crusader which Leyland needed to be concentrating on.Rather than wasting time and effort of the Marathon probably also saving loads of development and production cash spent on the T45 as a bonus.