NUMBER 33
Azerbaijan (two parts)
I ought to come clean and make it clear that this was the only LDD I wrote without driving the lorry, although I did a bit of the driving. Mainly, I rode shotgun as a journalist / spare driver. Robert
NUMBER 34
Morocco
I wrote this in my early days on Morocco while I was still a floating driver for Breda Transport. By the time this article appeared I already had a permanent lorry. Robert
Thanks for posting those excellent trip reports,particularly liked the bit about not remembering the bit about driving around dead cows being on the test ! Classic !
The best thread I’ve found so far. Keep up the good work. I was driving the FH parked behind the 143 in the Ralph magazine feature. It was Keiv 94 and it was the volvos maiden voyage
Intresting ERF man , who was driving the scania out of intrest ?
I know when Ralph first started the trip to Tashkent he said the F12 volvos took the punishing roads
better than the scania 143s and reckoned the scanias were in the workshop a day longer being fixed !
DEANB:
Intresting ERF man , who was driving the scania out of intrest ?I know when Ralph first started the trip to Tashkent he said the F12 volvos took the punishing roads
better than the scania 143s and reckoned the scanias were in the workshop a day longer being fixed !
Mike (waxey) Morrel was on the Scania. Bob Irvin’s F12 was out of shot. It’s was secure parking in a hotel
NUMBER 36
Here’s an LDD by George Bennett, who had been a Middle-East driver himself and turned to truck journalism, becoming the editor of TRUCK and eventually the editor-in-chief of the Reed truck mags. And a nice chap as well! Enjoy. Robert
38
This is pretty awesome stuff ! A trip involving 3 x f88s that shipped from Southampton in 1975 on a cruise ferry to Tangier,then drove across the Sahara to Nigeria a distance of around 3000 miles !
The heat was 140 degrees !
Click on each page to read as focus becomes clearer !
Borrowed this pic from wheelnut.
Evening all,
DEANB, thank you for putting all of these articles on here. I never knew that there were so many.
The Nigeria story is interesting, for the French always regarded the Sahara as their, “home territory”, and a gateway to the centre of Africa. There are many storeys of French vehicles tackling this route, either as “raids”, (expeditions), or just passing through!
During the 70s two operators specialised in running to Nigeria, and Bukino Fasso, Transports VIT, and Transports Chapuis. In both cases Saviem 4x2, and 6x4 , as well as Berliet 6x4 tractors and rigids were used, running either with conventional Savoyard tilt trailers, or similar rigid bodied drawbars.
Certainly when I was dealing with Chapuis, they did not regard this route as anything harder than the “conventional” routes that they used to the Middle Eastern destinations. I did have a friendship with one of the men who did this run regularly, there and back… and I think that it was Bullitt who after I had written what little I know of this activity, asked if I could get more details. This I tried to do, but sadly I was told that he was suffering from Dementia, so I did not press the issue with Marie Clare.
However I think our friend Davidoff, has a contact whose father drove for Transports VIT, so he may be able to perhaps get some more detailed account of this route. Most journeys were as a matter of course routed through Algeria initially.
Thanks again for putting this stuff up, I never realised that these storys were published in the UK magazines.
Cheerio for now.
Saviem:
…and I think that it was Bullitt who after I had written what little I know of this activity, asked if I could get more details. This I tried to do, but sadly I was told that he was suffering from Dementia, so I did not press the issue with Marie Clare…
Merci beaucoup M Saviem. Appreciate the effort. I think anyone who has an interest in long haul truck driving to anywhere unusual and off the beaten track so to speak (and that’s most of us here) cannot fail to be interested in the overland routes and runs down into “Black Africa”. Sadly, given that whole swathes of North Africa are now turning into basket cases, the chances of anyone resurrecting such a route nowadays seems almost impossible. 
