Well IIRC This Guy was powered by a 4 LW Gardner, Plus it had an Eaton two speed axle, It would run on fresh air no doubt , But I bet the driver wasnt in love with it Eh. Regards Larry.
When I worked for E.Robson(Gateshead)Ltd, we had three of these Guy Warrior’s, they were four wheel rigids, one of them was in the same reg. series as the JW Capstaff one in the picture- it was MNL 454, the others being KNL 358 and LTY 587. they all had the Meadows 4DC330 4cyl. engine and Eaton 2 speed. The glass fibre wings were forever cracking, due to the vibrations from the engine. Drivers standing on them didn’t help, either! I remember changing a dynamo one one of them- a job made longer because the radiator had to be removed first so that the long bolt under the dynamo could be extracted!
Hi, Forster Nice to see your remarks again, But IIRC The Guy Warrior was the 8 wheeler model, The 4 wheelers were Otters, Please correct me if Im wrong on this, Regards Larry.
There was a four wheeler Warrior introduced 1955-56 Larry with the same ‘Otter’ style cab and the grille as the Capstaff unit, it was a 14 ton GVW model, short lived because in 58 GUY released the more famous Invincible MkII and Warrior MkII known as the ‘Andy Capp’ GUY up our way. Robson’s could well have had these four wheeler Warriors Forster mentions, a new Otter Mk III and Formidable, like PG Walton ran, was also introduced in 1957 so around this time it was quite confusing what model GUY was running around unless you knew the detail changes. Cheers Franky.
Well IIRC This Guy was powered by a 4 LW Gardner, Plus it had an Eaton two speed axle, It would run on fresh air no doubt , But I bet the driver wasnt in love with it Eh. Regards Larry.
When I worked for E.Robson(Gateshead)Ltd, we had three of these Guy Warrior’s, they were four wheel rigids, one of them was in the same reg. series as the JW Capstaff one in the picture- it was MNL 454, the others being KNL 358 and LTY 587. they all had the Meadows 4DC330 4cyl. engine and Eaton 2 speed. The glass fibre wings were forever cracking, due to the vibrations from the engine. Drivers standing on them didn’t help, either! I remember changing a dynamo one one of them- a job made longer because the radiator had to be removed first so that the long bolt under the dynamo could be extracted!
Hi, Forster Nice to see your remarks again, But IIRC The Guy Warrior was the 8 wheeler model, The 4 wheelers were Otters, Please correct me if Im wrong on this, Regards Larry.
Hi, Larry, I have found some clarity on the various Guy models around 1956/7/8., in my Ian Allan ABC book of British Lorries, published around this time. The Otter 7 tonner had the Gardner 4LK engine, the Otter tractor had the Perkins P6. The Warrior had the Meadows engine in tractor or four wheeler version. As Frankydobo states, the eight wheeler at that time was the Invincible, there were also four wheeler models in this range, engine options were Gardner 5LW, 6LW, or Meadows 6DC630.(There is a picture in this book of a JW Capstaff 8 wheeler Invincible, reg. looks to be either HJR 956 or NJR 856) Interestingly, the all steel cabs on these were based on that fitted to the BMC 7tonner at that time. I think perhaps the four wheeler Warrior was a short lived model, so Guy then used the Warrior name on the new 8 wheeler range. All very confusing–So many options!! Regards, Eric.
We had three Guy Otters 1964-65 with Luton van bodies. They had 4LK Gardner Engines and a cab which was a type of cut down Invincible cab. virtually the same but slightly smaller.
They were excellent vehicles returning about 26mpg and probably OK at date of design & release as new vehicles, but as Motorways came along their top speed of about 45 mph quickly made them redundant, as they were painful to drive as all and sundry flew past.
The other massive problem was the cabs, in particular the cab frames that rotted & the cabs dropped. We re-constructed the cab frames and repaired, but all in all vey good vehicles, built like battleships, if they had been fitted with 5 cylinder engines and a better designed & produced cab.
Sadly I have no photos of these Guys, and like so many of my generation, never had the sense to take some.
Further to the discussions on Guy Otters, here are some details from a Guy Otter passenger model brochure I have had in my collection since the mid 1950s
Cheers, Leyland 600.
Frankydobo. The first of Armstrongs Scanias was a P82 8 wheeler & was a bit of a disappointment.
It was very heavy, even allowing for the steel body, in terms of performance, it was no match for
our S/AK 301in in journey times & fuel consumption. The 301 had the ■■■■■■■ L10 250 & the Scania
with their 245 hp IIRC. I wanted I Foden ! On to the tractors, never any major problems, although
one did need some repairs when metal was found in the sump during an oil change, cant remember what the outcome of that was. I can remember 4 with their cabs up on a Saturday afternoon with fitters changing header tanks. We also had one " run away " down the hill at Cromford in Derbyshire, Im sure if you know that area, thats a hell of a hill. Luckily no disaster, but as you can imagine the Union were about to " Black " the whole fleet, so the next day was a Saturday & we took that vehicle & trailer plus another 2 outfits of a random choice to Union Trucks at Killingworth where they all behaved perfectly & it was ultimately decided it had been a problem with the power supply for the ABS. I didnt understand it then & after all these years I am happy in my ignorance. We had
lots of little hiccups & for a long time we had a Ryder unit, Iveco 220.30, permanently in the yard.
Another on-going problem was the extra fuel tanks that had been fitted on the N/S were in fact
Hydraulic Oil tanks which constantly covered the rear with fuel oil. To be fair, just as big a problem
as the units, were the trailers, Carrymaster, 28 but one had the rear doors mounted the wrong way, you
opened the l/hand first. Lots of problems with them, but the main one was the chassis cracking at the
swan neck, so we had 5 or 6 substitute trailers for months while ours were repaired. I think any ex Van
Hee gentlemen will recall a man who came to you a little while after leaving us, say no more. Well Im sorry to have bored everyone with my tail of woe, we never really warmed to the fleet but in all fairness that could have been partly the suppliers fault !!! This has made my past flash before my eyes, Ill lie down now & dream of blue outfits.
pushrod47, that was the start of the end of Van Hee when that guy was but in charge, got rid of all the traffic staff that knew more than him, that’s what happens when you put someone in charge that’s has learned it from a book and never drove a lorry, 72 lorries when he turned up with in two year 24,
Cheers for that Pushrod47, interesting to hear, I think once you get a run of the same niggling problems and no definite answers from the dealers, confidence in them and the vehicles does begin to wain, I have to say I’ve always favoured a British built vehicle but both Scania and Volvo were put on such a pedestal from the time they hit the UK scene due to the 88 and 110 models in particular that they had this aura of invincibility yet they were, and later models especially, still prone to problems we also had to deal with in the UK manufactured market. As regards the management side of Van Hee, I worked for the company on three separate occasions, not as long in total as some of the lads like Bumper
and others that had been there a number of years already when I first started and were still there on my third period but it was noticeable at this time how things had changed and unfortunately not for the better in most cases and especially for me in the workshop, previously it had been a much better working environment all round, but that’s all I can say on it, this isn’t really the place. I was sad to later hear when I had been left a number of years of the demise of the company, I’d had some good times there, maybe this is something that had happened to a lot of other companies too in the Northeast and why they are no longer around. Cheers for the info Franky.
Does anyone remember a haulier called Teesway or Tees-Way transport? They were based near Darlington, Headlam Gainford, They had blue scanias not much lettering only on the headboard, My dad drove for them and got the first sleeper cab a 110 super, sure it was 1975, it was brand new, they went bust soon after I think? Can’t find any trace of the company ever existing?
