Myself i will be there with my trusted 142E tractor unit.
Which completes the foreign contingent which I am aware of.
Then of course there will be some remarkable French participants, especially my good friend Julien who has picked two units from his vast (and growing) collection:
his SAVIEM SM280 V8 which he restored in exactly the same livery as his father’s unit when he was on for VIT running the middle-east until their demise in the late 1970s (our late friend John “Saviem” wrote about them many times when he was still with us):
Julien has also recently completed the restoration of his GrandDad’s 1986-reg Renault R390 V8 Turboleader, which is the other unit he will be taking along to locomotion.
Nb: it is intended that the SAVIEM will be our own unofficial catering facility. We intend to pull open the side curtains and fit it with one or two large tables. All visitors are ecpected to bring their own folding chairs and drinking implements, along with their own modest contribution to the food beverage supplies.
Then there is one more notorious guest whose presence Is now confirmed, namely Jean-Michel from Lyon.
Jean-Michel had a long career at Berliet then RVI as a motorist engineer.
When he started with Berliet in 1974 he basically inherited Berliet’s “sick child”, the TR300’s V8 unit, with the mandate to fix its disastrous reliability record - which were documented by our late friend John Saviem in one of his posts as its “remarkable propensity to explode”.
Jean-Michel eventually uncovered the issue which was to do with lubrication, more specifically with too much oil accumulating up in the cylinder heads under high revs, eventually drying out the oil sump and starving the oil pump. One can easily imagine the consequence…
Jean-Michel is a compelling speaker (he is actively involved as a guide in the Berliet foundation which I recently visited). Incidentally, having been employed by Mack in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Jean-Michel has excellent command of the English language.
Jean-Michel will be staying in the same hotel as Dave/Fergie, Richard/MaggieD, Patrick/PV83, some 10 kms away from locomotion.
I am not sure their respective better halves will be enjoying much conversational variety over breakfast
Then finally there will of course be a host of other French classic lorries, including and especially Norbert Fréret’s fleet which was also present at the last edition in 2014.
I guess most of you British visitors will cluster around the few British trucks? I should be there on Sunday from 11.00 am (although an option is taken on Saturday if the weather is really brighter), bringing along 2 friends and perhaps also a couple of local wine bottles…
Davidoff:
1-last but not least, Terry has once again confirmed his participation, along with what I personally consider one of my all-time preferred lorries, his Scammell Crusader:
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Oh dear…I’m falling in love once again with that mighty Crusader…
Just spotted Terry coming off the boat at Calais. Heard him coming off of the bottom deck and just had time to get my phone out to grab a couple of shots before he roared up the exit ramp. Did sound terrific.
