Bewick:
ramone:
Theres a Atki in the latest Classic and Vintage Commercials magazine ,registration OJM 480L anyone know whos it is?That will be very interesting to a certain gent who lives in S. Wales!!! Dennis.
Peter Davies as done a close up on Atki Borderers and theres the Bewick motor with a nicely sheeted trailer,theres also a Henry Longs 1 too i think it may have been my dads old motor ,they got 2 new ones with 180 Gardners i cant see the registration though
Bewick:
ramone:
Theres a Atki in the latest Classic and Vintage Commercials magazine ,registration OJM 480L anyone know whos it is?That will be very interesting to a certain gent who lives in S. Wales!!! Dennis.
Bewick:
Bewick:
ramone:
Theres a Atki in the latest Classic and Vintage Commercials magazine ,registration OJM 480L anyone know whos it is?That will be very interesting to a certain gent who lives in S. Wales!!! Dennis.
Looks like hes asleep in the passenger seat in the pic ive got
It wasn’t only the lorries that were doomed to failure, there were powers in the BL company that were Yes men, and said Yes to anything.
The Alvis was killed off with the Leyland merger and with some development may have been successful. It was fitted with the reworked cast aluminium 3.5 engine that originally came from Buick.
The plastic bulge in the boot made this mid engined sports car look strange.
I looked at these vehicles in Gaydon along with Morris 1000 and Austin 1100 They seemed to be going backwards by the late 60’s
Wheel Nut:
It wasn’t only the lorries that were doomed to failure, there were powers in the BL company that were Yes men, and said Yes to anything.
The Alvis was killed off with the Leyland merger and with some development may have been successful. It was fitted with the reworked cast aluminium 3.5 engine that originally came from Buick.
The plastic bulge in the boot made this mid engined sports car look strange.
I looked at these vehicles in Gaydon along with Morris 1000 and Austin 1100 They seemed to be going backwards by the late 60’s
^ More selective Leyland bashing.
youtube.com/watch?v=NjnoJtVf … re=related
youtube.com/watch?v=CCd7if8eRsU&NR=1
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5jtf83eKGs
( Triumph 2.5 Litre,Rover V8 and V12 Jag)
newmercman:
Carryfast:
Which all seems to reinforce my idea that it was British customers that killed the British truck making industry not those manufacturers.
You’re spot on there Carryfast
The reason that latter day ERFs and Fodens were inferior products to the continentals were down to lack of budget, a lack of budget because everybody had filled their yards with foreign manufactured lorries, even ‘Saint’ Bewick had Volvo, Scania, Mercedes and Renaults, he goes on and on about how good the Atki was with a ■■■■■■■■ Fuller, Rockwell driveline, yet he bought F88s and 111s
If the idiotic practices of the Unions had not strangled the British manufacturers then the likes of AEC and Scammel could have more than matched the opposition, but mismanagement starved them of the budget they needed to develop and build them
I reckon if AEC had been left alone then it would be the best lorry on the road today
We’re almost agreed on the issues nmm but the point I’ve been making is that there’s no way that the Brit manufacturers’ management or workers caused the problem.
The case I’m making is that the foreign ones had the advantage of a time lag between the British customer’s ideas/demands and the foreign customers in the foreign manufacturers home markets.So we had the situation of the F88 being designed and brought to market during the 1960’s while the Brits were still calling on the home industry to keep on producing Gardner powered heaps more suited to the 1940’s and 1950’s.The foreign manufacturers then held that advantage of the revenues,made from the sales of more advanced products in their home markets,then going into the development of even better products but always with the advantage of that headstart and time delay.
By the time those British yards were full of F10/12’s etc,when the Brit customers finally got the idea of the advantages of running better trucks,it was already too late for the British ones to catch up.The simple fact is if the British manufacturers had spent money in designing and building better,faster,trucks they would’nt have been able to sell them on the home market at the time (1960’s/1970’s) unlike the foreign (especially Scandinavian) manufacturers could in theirs because of the more advanced level of thinking of their customers relative to the British ones.
Now I’m going to disagree Carryfast, to a point anyway, the continentals weren’t as good as people think they were, not at first anyway, an F86 wouldn’t pass a Gardner 180 powered Guy going up Archway, if the Guy had a 220 ■■■■■■■ it would leave the F86 for dead, the 1418 Merc wouldn’t pull a greasy stick from a dog’s arse, neither would a Magirus Deutz, even the bigger models in their ranges wouldn’t live with a 240 Gardner or a 250 ■■■■■■■ and when the 240 turbo ■■■■■■■ came out it would take a 290 88 to get past one, a 240 wouldn’t do it on a hill, yes the continentals with their 8/12/16spd boxes could romp along on the flat, but they didn’t stop very well and none were as cheap to run as the British competition, what they offered was immediate delivery and give away prices, then they started to make decent plant, they were able because they had the revenue from sales to develop their product and fine tune it, meanwhile you waited 18 months for 1950s technology from the Brits, more and more chose not to wait and the rest is history 
newmercman:
Now I’m going to disagree Carryfast, to a point anyway, the continentals weren’t as good as people think they were, not at first anyway, an F86 wouldn’t pass a Gardner 180 powered Guy going up Archway, if the Guy had a 220 ■■■■■■■ it would leave the F86 for dead, the 1418 Merc wouldn’t pull a greasy stick from a dog’s arse, neither would a Magirus Deutz, even the bigger models in their ranges wouldn’t live with a 240 Gardner or a 250 ■■■■■■■ and when the 240 turbo ■■■■■■■ came out it would take a 290 88 to get past one, a 240 wouldn’t do it on a hill, yes the continentals with their 8/12/16spd boxes could romp along on the flat, but they didn’t stop very well and none were as cheap to run as the British competition, what they offered was immediate delivery and give away prices, then they started to make decent plant, they were able because they had the revenue from sales to develop their product and fine tune it, meanwhile you waited 18 months for 1950s technology from the Brits, more and more chose not to wait and the rest is history
Two bits you did’nt coment on ,heaters and comfort!!!
newmercman:
Now I’m going to disagree Carryfast, to a point anyway, the continentals weren’t as good as people think they were, not at first anyway, an F86 wouldn’t pass a Gardner 180 powered Guy going up Archway, if the Guy had a 220 ■■■■■■■ it would leave the F86 for dead, the 1418 Merc wouldn’t pull a greasy stick from a dog’s arse, neither would a Magirus Deutz, even the bigger models in their ranges wouldn’t live with a 240 Gardner or a 250 ■■■■■■■ and when the 240 turbo ■■■■■■■ came out it would take a 290 88 to get past one, a 240 wouldn’t do it on a hill, yes the continentals with their 8/12/16spd boxes could romp along on the flat, but they didn’t stop very well and none were as cheap to run as the British competition, what they offered was immediate delivery and give away prices, then they started to make decent plant, they were able because they had the revenue from sales to develop their product and fine tune it, meanwhile you waited 18 months for 1950s technology from the Brits, more and more chose not to wait and the rest is history
I think you’ve missed that point about the ‘differences’ between what the Brits were buying and what the Scandinavians were buying.As Saviem said the Scandinavians could’nt believe what we were doing with F86’s because the Scandinavians were’nt using the things to pull 32 tonners.While we were zb’ing about with racing those with those gutless Gardner and ■■■■■■■ luggers up hills they were busy with using stuff like the F89 and V8 Scanias etc and then used the know how and money earnt by designing and flogging those in their home market to go on to making the type of wagons that the ■■■■■■ Brit guvnors eventually did go on to buy.
It’s a bit like that comparison that I’ve been making that the Brits laughed at the idea of a 400 hp TM and bought the zb hopeless little 7 Litre bus engined one to haul 32 tonners around 
.Now though even the British supermarket distribution sector won’t buy much under 400 hp wagons.
newmercman:
Carryfast:
Which all seems to reinforce my idea that it was British customers that killed the British truck making industry not those manufacturers.
[/quote
You’re spot on there CarryfastThe reason that latter day ERFs and Fodens were inferior products to the continentals were down to lack of budget, a lack of budget because everybody had filled their yards with foreign manufactured lorries, even ‘Saint’ Bewick had Volvo, Scania, Mercedes and Renaults, he goes on and on about how good the Atki was with a ■■■■■■■■ Fuller, Rockwell driveline, yet he bought F88s and 111s
If the idiotic practices of the Unions had not strangled the British manufacturers then the likes of AEC and Scammel could have more than matched the opposition, but mismanagement starved them of the budget they needed to develop and build them
I drove plenty of fodens and a few erf’s from the 80s and 90s and while the driveline was more than a match for anything scania Volvo etc had on offer the cabs were very poor and always had a bit of a kit car feel compared to anything else.
But I still maintain it was the British truck builders arrogance during the 70s that caused the problem.
We can now see to survive you had to sell your products all over europe and further afield to survive and we can see we had the design knowhow to build a truck as good as any one else but the attitude in the home Market was this is what we build like it or lump it and the Atkinson borderer or foden s80 wasn’t going to cut it against much of the opposition.
Gardners reputation was second to none among British hauliers but why did it take them so long to update there engines and why did they not step up production to meet demand.
There’s plenty of remarks on these threads remarking how hauliers desperate to buy new British trucks were fobbed off with tremendous lead times for trucks coupled with the truck maker treating you like something they had just stood in.
Scania and Volvo were constantly tweaking there products as problems arose and to this day they still have a reputation as been a premium truck compared to daf man Renault etc where as bewick pointed out seddon Atkinson didn’t even though atkinson always had a reputation as been a premium truck.I reckon if AEC had been left alone then it would be the best lorry on the road today
A company i worked for in the early 70’s had a couple of ERF’s on order as they had taken on work which required 32t when the biggest they had were 24t, after being on order for 18months (gardner !) and not a sign of them a Scania salesman came in the yard with a 110 demo, the boss asked what the delivery times were like, the reply was a few weeks ! desperate to put them to work they never had any more Brit motors.
Trev_H:
A company i worked for in the early 70’s had a couple of ERF’s on order as they had taken on work which required 32t when the biggest they had were 24t, after being on order for 18months (gardner !) and not a sign of them a Scania salesman came in the yard with a 110 demo, the boss asked what the delivery times were like, the reply was a few weeks ! desperate to put them to work they never had any more Brit motors.
One way or another it’s just another example of how firms like ERF were a victim of the Brit guvnors ideas in usually choosing the Gardner option in their wagons instead of enquiring if there was anything else available at the time of placing the order.Which seems to be how ■■■■■■■ got a foothold in the UK market to start with.Not sure of the exact output of the 110 at the time but I’d bet it was a lot more than the ERF/Gardner combination was specced at to run at 32 t.
But the delivery time bs certainly was’nt the issue concerning the resistance that Bedford found to offering more modern competitive products in the late 1970’s let alone the early 1970’s,and there’s no reason to think that ERF would’nt have met exactly the same resistance assuming that they’d have offered something at the time that could have outperformed that Scania.
But your guvnor obviously seemed to be applying double standards in his buying criterea at the time in not asking ERF to provide a more powerful turbocharged option,instead of the Gardner,when he placed the order in which case you might have got a turbocharged ■■■■■■■ in the ERF instead of a Scania and ERF might not have lost a customer.
Waiting lists were’nt much shorter for ■■■■■■■ or Rolls power, as for you’re beloved Bedford DD dinosaur, it entered the market too late when other heavyweights were already well established, tried and tested ! Some people saw it as Bedford trying to cash in on a market it had no experience in, sales were always going to be hard, reliability wasn’t an issue but fuel consumption certainly was.
The scania 110 was available with either 190 or 260bhp so similar to what the Brits were offering.
Trev_H:
Waiting lists were’nt much shorter for ■■■■■■■ or Rolls power, as for you’re beloved Bedford DD dinosaur, it entered the market too late when other heavyweights were already well established, tried and tested ! Some people saw it as Bedford trying to cash in on a market it had no experience in, sales were always going to be hard, reliability wasn’t an issue but fuel consumption certainly was.
Don’t think that there were that many ‘heavyweights’ in the 400 hp league at the end of the 1970’s in use here and no one would have known what the fuel consumption levels of the Bedford were,compared to aything else in that horsepower league at the time (V8 FIAT and Scania V8 range),because no one here bought any to find out. 
kr79:
The scania 110 was available with either 190 or 260bhp so similar to what the Brits were offering.
So no surprises there then in the Brit guvnors acceptance of them.190 hp at 32 t sounds like the type of power to weight ratios favoured by the guvnors here at the time.
Carryfast, one thing you are wrong about is the continentals running around in 140s and F89s, they didn’t, mostly they had 110s and 88s, the Fiats were 240-260hp, MANs were 240hp, Merc were 240hp, you see a pattern emerging 
At the time you’re talking about the big engines available were, 140 Scania @ 350hp, the F89 @ 330hp, the big Fiat @330/350hp, MAN/Merc V10 @ 320hp and the ■■■■■■■ NTC @ 335hp.
Look at the pics on the Middle East threads on over on Toprun.ch, you see the continentals running down there in 110s and 111s, not many big engines about. In fact I would bet that they’ve sold more V8 Scanias in the UK and Ireland than they’ve sold in Scandinavia, The Italians were the only ones running around in big motors and that’s because of the much higher weights over there and of course the terrain
newmercman:
Carryfast, one thing you are wrong about is the continentals running around in 140s and F89s, they didn’t, mostly they had 110s and 88s, the Fiats were 240-260hp, MANs were 240hp, Merc were 240hp, you see a pattern emergingAt the time you’re talking about the big engines available were, 140 Scania @ 350hp, the F89 @ 330hp, the big Fiat @330/350hp, MAN/Merc V10 @ 320hp and the ■■■■■■■ NTC @ 335hp.
Look at the pics on the Middle East threads on over on Toprun.ch, you see the continentals running down there in 110s and 111s, not many big engines about. In fact I would bet that they’ve sold more V8 Scanias in the UK and Ireland than they’ve sold in Scandinavia, The Italians were the only ones running around in big motors and that’s because of the much higher weights over there and of course the terrain
And most of the Dutch operators were using 275 - 310hp well into the 90’s and before anyone says that Holland is flat, these were not often in Holland
I did point that out earlier on this thread and even today you see some pretty heavyweight combinations in Sweden been pulled by fh12s and r420/r480s rather than the v8s or fh16s unless you are doing heavy haulage they always have been a owner drivers or small hauliers truck and we have probbally only got to the power ratings we have at the top end due to scania and Volvo trying to get one over on each other.
newmercman:
Carryfast, one thing you are wrong about is the continentals running around in 140s and F89s, they didn’t, mostly they had 110s and 88s, the Fiats were 240-260hp, MANs were 240hp, Merc were 240hp, you see a pattern emergingAt the time you’re talking about the big engines available were, 140 Scania @ 350hp, the F89 @ 330hp, the big Fiat @330/350hp, MAN/Merc V10 @ 320hp and the ■■■■■■■ NTC @ 335hp.
Look at the pics on the Middle East threads on over on Toprun.ch, you see the continentals running down there in 110s and 111s, not many big engines about. In fact I would bet that they’ve sold more V8 Scanias in the UK and Ireland than they’ve sold in Scandinavia, The Italians were the only ones running around in big motors and that’s because of the much higher weights over there and of course the terrain
Notwithstanding all that there’s another pattern contained in the evidence.The Scandinavians etc etc would’nt have bothered with spending money developing 330-350 hp trucks during the 1960’s/1970’s if they only had a demand for 180-250 hp ones which seems to be the limit here at the time.We’ve got evidence that at least one ‘well known’ contributor seemed to make the jump from running 180 hp Gardner powered heaps at 32 t max up to 450 hp Scanias for running at around 40 t max although not for any reason of hauling Italian weights through Italian mountains .
We’ve also got evidence that the Brits now think that around 400 hp is nothing unusual even for uk distribution work and even the M6 oop north still is’nt exactly like most of Italy.So exactly what was it and when that changed the Brit mindset and how was it that Bedford did actually manage to flog some of those 7 and 8 Litre bus engined TM’s but no one seemed to want to know about making the jump up to the next league even though Bedford’s engineers had obviously foreseen the need for much more powerful trucks not just for the Italian market because that would’nt have been worth all the expense and aggro of development.
I still stand by the idea that Leyland knew the Brit market better than everyone else at the time and decided to just,rightly,give up and leave it all to DAF and the Scandinavians etc who had their home markets to provide them with some income to pay for design and development until the Brits came to their senses which would have been too late for the Brit manufacturers.
