Past Present and in Between in Pictures (Part 2)

Classic British motor: a Deutz with a pigeon loft! You’d have got the same unit with a sleeper cab over the water. :rofl:

To what do you allude? :wink: :rofl:

I allude to this, of course: a Continental version of it with a sleeper!

But having said that, to be fair, it wasn’t long before Brits were getting it right with serious Deutz long-haulers, as exemplified by this Trans-UK Middle-Easter!

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Always liked this livery.

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First artic I ever drove that model Maggie Deutz (the most modern one in the pics btw :grin:)
Well.ahead of it’s time it was…
even a night heater as standard, unheard of in those days.

Used to go with my owner driver mate who let me drive it with him (no L plates) I had only a Class 3 at time.

Then when I got my Class 1 I did holiday relief with it.
It was the dogs nuts at the time, not many about.
All the old hands in their ERFs and Atkis, and me this young cocky over confident kid (who really needed a slap tbh on reflection :joy:) rocking up beside them in a brand new Maggie …in full on poser mode. :sunglasses: :joy:

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Yes, but I didn’t see the pigeon loft one.

Blow up the picture and you’ll see it’s a day cab with an Atkinsonesque pigeon loft tacked on to the back!!

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That’s not a pigeon loft, that’s a rabbit hutch, and the reason why I am partial to a grass sandwich now and again. :rofl:

A pigeon loft is on top of the cab, I was never inside one and could not imagine how the drivers got up there. :thinking:

Proper pigeon lofts through a hatch in the cab.

Yes I realise that, but I just couldn’t see how it was done with a mattress in the way but I suppose it was in 2 parts, the mattress. Good job I was never offered one because I would have had to think long and hard about how much I liked the job and would I just walk away. I think the latter, never been afraid, as Buzzer well knows, to walk off a job instead of getting into row, but for most of my career I was, like all good drivers, in demand and it was no big deal.

One thing that bugged me was fire. I was told that the little side window was a ‘kickout’ one, but I never really fancied the idea of trying to wriggle out, feet first, with my arse on fire. :rofl:

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Head hunted, is that what your saying? don’t be so modest man.

Nope, just walked out in the morning and into the next job in the afternoon. More than a few times. Made no bones about where I had come from, and why. Never got the sack if you don’t count 2 redundancies with companies packing up the job altogether. One little untruth there which I forgot, Got a job driving a Commer for a market trader one morning, did all my deliveries and on the way back empty overtook a car at 60 mph, in a non-restricted zone. The car driver was a mate of tha boss and phoned him and when I rolled in he said ‘no-one drives my lorry at 60 so don’t come back tomorrow’. Obviously I didn’t, because I had another job to go to. :rofl:

Loco or marine engine? and what make?. A 2015 Richard Says photo A1(M) by Doncaster.

Locomotive engine but what make, I don’t know?

Years ago, the big oil companies all ran their own fleets. Nowadays it’s all done by outside contractors. When did this change come about?

Well, for good or ill, I think you’ll find that they were called pigeon lofts (even if people meant rabbit hutch) long before the roof-pods came along in the late ‘70s. A decade before that Motor Panel cabs like the Crusader were called pigeon lofts if they had an add-on behind the cab. Flippin’ semantics eh!

You’re right there. I had one that DID catch fire. Mercifully I was driving it through France at the time. I jumped out of the cab onto the grass by the hard-shoulder and within seconds I watched the roof-pod evaporate in a puff of smoke. I was horrified and refused ever to drive one again.

Couple more, Buzzer



nmp’s

I wonder what Pennant took to North Africa in a tilt?

That Pennant M/B looks the ■■■■■■■■. Is that a spot light on the cab roof?