OK the old perennial…
WHY are they called suzies, the name must have come from somewhere. I’ve been in this industry 30+ years and I STILL don’t know. Come on some one must know. I’ve heard all the theories about named after someones daughter etc but nowt for definite.
I believe one theory is it’s shortened from “suspended lines”
There was a thread on this a fair while back iirc, I can’t remember the conclusion it drew though.
When taking over a lorry with tangled suzies, I used to cheer myself up by re-connecting them whilst singing ‘If you knew Suzie like I knew Suzie, oh, oh, oh what a gal…!’ Ah yes, I’ll just grab my coat and medication. 
Robert
ERF-NGC-European:
When taking over a lorry with tangled suzies, I used to cheer myself up by re-connecting them whilst singing ‘If you knew Suzie like I knew Suzie, oh, oh, oh what a gal…!’ Ah yes, I’ll just grab my coat and medication.
I remember connecting suzies to trailers from Scania 81s. A red,yellow and blue, 7-pin,a fog and a charge lead for tail lift batteries.Like a nest at back of cab. 
I seem to recall seeing ads in the press many years ago advertising them as a new concept of coily, colour-coded lines that were marketed as “Suzies”. It seems that they were a success and the brand name has become the generic term for similar products as Hoover, JCB and Kango have. But I could be wrong!
Chris Webb:
ERF-NGC-European:
When taking over a lorry with tangled suzies, I used to cheer myself up by re-connecting them whilst singing ‘If you knew Suzie like I knew Suzie, oh, oh, oh what a gal…!’ Ah yes, I’ll just grab my coat and medication.
I remember connecting suzies to trailers from Scania 81s. A red,yellow and blue, 7-pin,a fog and a charge lead for tail lift batteries.Like a nest at back of cab.
What’s the yellow one for? We have red for supply, blue for signal and seven pin for electrics, including provision for battery charging.
New lorries have a 2 line braking system now. Preceding that in the UK anyway lorries had a three line air system for artics Red Emergency, Blue Auxiliary and Yellow Service lines.
They used to be all black and made from straight pipe, they often still are in Germ@ny.
I heard it was a woman who worked at Dupont who invented Polyamide in 1939, however she didn’t want her discovery named after her, who ever heard of Polly in industry, so she named her discovery after the lady who made her coffee in the office. Polly put the kettle on and Susie made the drinks.
Ah the old Susie chestnut (spelt Susie not with a Z), here we go, SUSpended Insulated Electrical Lead or for short Susie Lead. If you weren’t around in the late 50’s early 60’s in transport you won’t recall that the first coiled lead attached from Unit to Trailer was the electrical lead, the air lines were still long hoses with Palm Type couplings that often got snagged or worse, we didn’t seem to go for the Pogo Stick affair the Yanks used to keep lines held up. The early coiled electrical leads were thick rubber coated and had quite small coils and were heavy compared with later ones. So that is your actual Susie, I can only presume the industry, once Poly nylons had started to be used more for many items, that Nylon (plastic as we called them) air lines could also be manufactured and used as the electrical lead had, in effect suspended and able to avoid the problems the long air lines previously had, although we know from experience the coiled airlines were not entirely free from snagging or getting dirty.
Now looking into this I came across a Law Suit where a well known company was using Susie as its Copyright logo and another manufacturer was objecting as it said the term was a generic one used to describe the airlines, now it was the Red, Yellow, Blue airlines they were concerned with I’m not even sure having read the case that both companies knew the electrical lead was coiled before the ones used to pass air. I also don’t know the outcome of the case it wasn’t covered on the piece I found on the internet. By the way before anyone checks I’ve searched old Comm Motor mags and they only refer to the later made airlines mentioned as Susie’s. It seems the term came into use probably by whichever manufacturer made the first coiled electrical leads or the guys tasked to sell them to the industry and the term took hold when the first plastic leads appeared until it was used to describe all the lines attached to unit and trailer right up to today.
Nearly done, to answer briefly another query, the Red line (Emergency) supplies air from Unit to Trailer air tank in a constant feed and releases the trailer brakes. The Yellow line (Service) supplies air to the trailer brakes when the Unit foot brake is pressed applying trailer brakes. The Blue line (Secondary) supplies air to the trailer brakes when the Secondary brake in the cab is applied. Many types of Secondary brake were used over the years, some mounted separately some in the same modular unit as the hand/park brake. Hope this shed some light but please don’t put a Z in Susie,its like saying ‘I’ve had a Cheeze sandwich’ and that’s not right is it! 
Cheers Franky.
Well that is a really concise answer frankydobo thanks very much.
First class explanation, franky. Would you now like to have a bash at the Big J question? 
Frankydobo:
Ah the old Susie chestnut (spelt Susie not with a Z), here we go, SUSpended Insulated Electrical Lead or for short Susie Lead. If you weren’t around in the late 50’s early 60’s in transport you won’t recall that the first coiled lead attached from Unit to Trailer was the electrical lead, the air lines were still long hoses with Palm Type couplings that often got snagged or worse, we didn’t seem to go for the Pogo Stick affair the Yanks used to keep lines held up. The early coiled electrical leads were thick rubber coated and had quite small coils and were heavy compared with later ones. So that is your actual Susie, I can only presume the industry, once Poly nylons had started to be used more for many items, that Nylon (plastic as we called them) air lines could also be manufactured and used as the electrical lead had, in effect suspended and able to avoid the problems the long air lines previously had, although we know from experience the coiled airlines were not entirely free from snagging or getting dirty.
Now looking into this I came across a Law Suit where a well known company was using Susie as its Copyright logo and another manufacturer was objecting as it said the term was a generic one used to describe the airlines, now it was the Red, Yellow, Blue airlines they were concerned with I’m not even sure having read the case that both companies knew the electrical lead was coiled before the ones used to pass air. I also don’t know the outcome of the case it wasn’t covered on the piece I found on the internet. By the way before anyone checks I’ve searched old Comm Motor mags and they only refer to the later made airlines mentioned as Susie’s. It seems the term came into use probably by whichever manufacturer made the first coiled electrical leads or the guys tasked to sell them to the industry and the term took hold when the first plastic leads appeared until it was used to describe all the lines attached to unit and trailer right up to today.
Nearly done, to answer briefly another query, the Red line (Emergency) supplies air from Unit to Trailer air tank in a constant feed and releases the trailer brakes. The Yellow line (Service) supplies air to the trailer brakes when the Unit foot brake is pressed applying trailer brakes. The Blue line (Secondary) supplies air to the trailer brakes when the Secondary brake in the cab is applied. Many types of Secondary brake were used over the years, some mounted separately some in the same modular unit as the hand/park brake. Hope this shed some light but please don’t put a Z in Susie,its like saying ‘I’ve had a Cheeze sandwich’ and that’s not right is it!
Excellent! Thank you Frankydo! Robert
Good informative answers…but slightly if topic why is a tilt so called then,? Instead of a tarp etc
A Tilt is an old term back to horse drawn wagon days, simply a covered van and still appropriate for the Tilt Trailers of modern times. Tarp though is more a regional term, in the Northeast we just called them Sheets as they do in some other areas, Tarp meaning Tarpaulin of course as you likely know. Its the same with chain tensioners there are other regional names for them, again up here known as Chains n Warricks, wooden battens are Kickers, maybe some other novel names will turn up I’m sure there are more. Franky.
As regaurds Tarps,in the 1960S and before my time ,TARPSwere used on all ships hatches to cover the hatch boards normaly 3 Tarps per HATCH ,in the midlands they were called tarps for the lorries,as chain tightners were called snappers,wood for loading timber on was called bearers,or dunnage.
The old [vacum] artic scamel couplings pipes were stright, and i am not sure, but being male and female couplings ,palm couplings were mostly euoropean ,or on tilts however i never used them at all untill the late1970s.and we would take them off the skellies in FELESTOWE DOCKSfor future use…but not on our normal trailers all male and female.
AIR LINES Covered in grease off the turntable.OR if some driver had used a unit solo and not put the air lines up out of the way the electric cable would be dragged along if not put in its holder then worn smooth,how do i know i did it once never again.SHARP KNIFE ,SMALL SCREW DRIVER, PLIERS,all the kit you needed when on a big company,plus a ring spanner and hammer for the trailer brakes,and a sence of humour .dbp.
Frankydobo:
A Tilt is an old term back to horse drawn wagon days, simply a covered van and still appropriate for the Tilt Trailers of modern times. Tarp though is more a regional term, in the Northeast we just called them Sheets as they do in some other areas, Tarp meaning Tarpaulin of course as you likely know. Its the same with chain tensioners there are other regional names for them, again up here known as Chains n Warricks, wooden battens are Kickers, maybe some other novel names will turn up I’m sure there are more. Franky.
Quite right Frankydobo. Tilt was a covered wagon or barge boat cover on a framework - think of the old Wild West cowboy wagons, they were “ tilts “ which I believe is old Dutch language for “ tent “ , which a tilt trailer resembles in it’s construction. As far as Suzie is concerned back in the late 1960’s when Intertruck were making Susie’s, they claimed it was a catchy name after the wife of the inventor of them, whether true or not, I can’t be sure but I heard that elsewhere at the time.
Yeah that’s an old story Ozzy and about as true as Gold at the end of a Rainbow, there are so many versions of that tale the whole Company must have been staffed by Susans! It was Intertruck that tried to Copyright the name as I said in my post, I didn’t know the outcome of the court case but copies of the Truck and Trailer Parts catalogues we got at work had the logo ‘Susie’ on the Intertruck page for airlines so they may well have sneaked it. Palm Couplings though were in general use up to the 60’s when the Male and Female ‘C’ Couplings began to take over and early electrical lead plugs didn’t have Seven pins as today, there wasn’t the lighting on trailers back then to need so many, I believe there was only something like four pins. Franky.
Before 7 pin I remember 3 pin, earth, lights and brake lights, then 5 pin with the extra 2 for the new fangled flashing indicators
I remember the Male & Female palm couplings
they used to work loose half the time
6LX:
I remember the Male & Female palm couplings
they used to work loose half the time
I used palm couplings a lot, especially on dock-traction work. I found they stayed the course longer if I moistened the seals. Then the RSPCA found out . Robert