Not the clearest of photos but this one belonged to Townson Tankers of Oldham before Sadlers bought them out MK 2 Leyland Marathon HNE388V fitted with 290 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ to leave depot in Morecambe to make round trip to Menstrie in Stirling on nights
fleetno 40 coupled to ex bsc conset tr-alan
Stanfield:
Hi Real Biffo Do you remember a lad called Phil Davies who worked for leyland motors at chorley on different test trucks.
John
The name rings a bell, but it’s so long ago now, it’s hard to remember.
As for D191 demonstrator, I worked on that! I think that was one of the better ones…
Hi revman
Thats a strange looking beast, never seen a Marathon like that before, it looks almost like a Crusader, cab straight up above the front wheels, noticed the little step at the back of the cab, just like a Scania LB76… Got any more pic’s ?
Regards
Jerry
sorry jerry only one i have of that one but heres one i took tipping scrap at rotherham-alan
heres a kieth hudson print
They were a tad before my time, but as I understand it, if the engineers had had the funding to do and COMPLETE their jobs, many of these marques would still be with us.
Oh and of course who is going to put money into a company where the workforce is so militant they have more ‘holidays’ than schoolteachers lol. I went to school in the West Midlands and British Leyland Longbridge strikes were in the news every other week. Be afraid British Airways be very afraid,
A couple more Marathon user’s.Both Mk 2s
JOHN
Actually, it was the car section of BL that was militant, not the heavy side. there was one big strike only on the heavy side around 1968’ish, I was an apprentice at the time, but we had to go in each day, then we could bugger off. It lasted 5 weeks.
Apart from that there was very little on the heavy side.
It was the government of the time that ruined Leyland Motors (as it was then known) they persuaded Leyland to take over the run down car side, including; Austin-Morris, Jaguar, Alvis etc, plus the subsidery companies that I can’t remember.
There was all the union problems that everyone tars anything with the British Leyland badge on, this didn’t help the heavy side either.
up until now, 90% of all HGV’s on the road were either Leylands or one of the sister companies, all the Buses were Leylands as well. Leyland still made the engines that went into the Centurion Tank although it was being phased out.
For over 10 years all the profit money that Leyland were making went down to the car side, the only thing that happened to the HGV range was a cheap facelift of the front of the ergonomic cab.
Suddenly Leyland realised that other HGV manufacturers were taking their business, and frantic work took place on the 500 fixed head engine which was the mainstay of the Buffalo & Bison range. A new addition to the factory was built to machine and assemble & test this new wonderful engine, it was rushed into production with disastrous results, it kept cracking between the injector holes and the valve seats, this then required a major engine strip down, there was no cylinder head to remove, the crankcase had to be split, and the block complete with pistons had to be removed from the lower crankcase. It was approx a 3 day turn round to remove & rebuild the engine, even the cab had to come off to get the engine out.
They were also fitted to the new National bus as a horizontal unit, with the same problems, the bus companies were not impressed, in fact I believe that one bus company managed to fit a 680 engine from the Leyland leopard in, the engineers became involved, and that became an option to bus companies with the National 2 if I remember correctly.
With the 500 engine failing miserably giving Leyland a bad name, they then rushed out the Marathon, with it’s over stressed AEC engine, later ones getting the ■■■■■■■ or Rolls-Royce option (I think) but has already been said, it wasn’t a brilliant truck.
Only when they brought out the Roadtrain and the Roadrunner did Leyland start to get a decent truck again(IMHO) but it was too late, other manufacturers has passed Leyland, and similar to the British Motorcycle Manufacturing, ie crap management, lack of investment, antiquated machinery (we were still using machines from WW2 to machine components when NC and CNC were being used by others) the moral had been kicked out of the workforce and then we went into receivership.
Once again, the government stuck it’s nose in, and Leyland - DAF was formed. At the time there was what everone thought was a better offer from an American company (name escapes me at the moment!) but the goverment again persuaded the company to tie up with DAF.
I believe that DAF screwed Leyland, they took anything that was any good, then tied Leylands hands in the market place.
When I started at Leyland Motors, there were approx 20.000 people worked at the 5 factories in and around Leyland itself, I think that there’s something like 400 now!!!
It’s sad to see where the factories used to be and are no more. Housing estates, supermarkets, car showrooms, smaller industrial units have now taken over. One building alone was over ½ mile long. Ah well! memories of a by-gone age, just like your photo’s (cricky, I feel quite sad and emotional now…)
HeHe! Just remembered… do you remember dipping the oil on the Marathon? you needed 10ft of space in front of the cab to get the dipstick out!
The real Biffo:
in fact I believe that one bus company managed to fit a 680 engine from the Leyland leopard in, the engineers became involved, and that became an option to bus companies with the National 2 if I remember correctly.
Ribble certainly did. Also Gardner engines became an option on the National 2, didn’t they? As indeed they were on the B45 Olympian 'decker.
Gardener engines were an option in the Atlantean as well (pre the Olympian) I believe under the Bristol name if my memory serves me correctly, but there was nothing wrong with the Leyland 600/680 engine, in fact MAN either copied it, or actually got the rights to it when Leyland gave over producing it. (unsure, so I hold my hand up if wrong) The 600/680 engine was used in everything, from trucks/buses, to diesel trains, to power station pumps, fairground rides, it was everywhere.What’s more, it was a good engine, and a good engine to work on, you could have it stripped down in no time at all.
The real Biffo:
Gardener engines were an option in the Atlantean as well (pre the Olympian) I believe under the Bristol name if my memory serves me correctly, but there was nothing wrong with the Leyland 600/680 engine, in fact MAN either copied it, or actually got the rights to it when Leyland gave over producing it. (unsure, so I hold my hand up if wrong) The 600/680 engine was used in everything, from trucks/buses, to diesel trains, to power station pumps, fairground rides, it was everywhere.What’s more, it was a good engine, and a good engine to work on, you could have it stripped down in no time at all.
Well, not in the Atlantean, but they were the usual engine in the Bristol VR and the Daimler Fleetline. It was DAF who used a development of the O.680, and DAFs sounded like Leylands for years!
G’day Fellas,
Interesting thread this,sadly for me the Marathon was a little before my time as a fitter and photographer,I have very few photos to share. I did however find this pic of an Aussie one,I’m not sure how many were sold in Australia,or what engines were an option. I do know that they didn’t make it to NZ. I’ll try and find some more pics and info on Aussie Marathons.
Sorry 240 G, I didn’t make myself clear enough, I did mean that the Gardener was fitted into the Bristol version, as you correctly say not actually the decker with Atlantean on the cover.
One or two more Leyland Marathons
R Swains seemed to like them
I do not have any pictures of Leyland Marathons but we had one at “SYKES” and the lad who drove it is Steve Cook a member on here I think it had a ■■■■■■■ 250 and fuler range change box I did an odd local load with it but it was not a patch on the Crusaders in every aspect in my opinion but I am bias as I thought it was a very stupid thing to bring the Marathon out when the crusader was barely 2 years old from the same parent company and they would have been far more sense in getting one correct before launching another model in the same class as they could have done what they did with the ergo Beaver and Mandator just badge engineering and different engines but I guess that would have been to difficult for them to think about as it had been done before. There is quite a few pictures on bubblemans thread as well.
cheers Johnnie
Stanfield:
cracking photo - anyone know if swains bought them second hand and from who? I like the comment by the BRS example about being popular on the middle east run - slight poetic licence/rose tinted specs 
G’day again fellas,
I’ve been having a captain cook through some of my old Aussie magazines for some more Marathon pics,didn’t find much though.
Found this pic from the steak and kindey show in 1980.
And this which is a little of thread,but it does have a couple of Marathons,not much in the way of info though. Comes from a 1981 magazine.
Check out the ‘Harrier’ both in 6x4 and 8x4,pretty sure they were only available in Australia.
Cheers Jamie
Another one or two belonging to Swains.
John