Every one is allowed their own opinion DIG and I for one wouldn’t deny you yours.
I had the un fortunate experience of driving one from Newcastle to Adelaide, flat steel out and phosphate back. I can’t say it was an enjoyable trip, and I would quite happily ( and in my opinion ) describe the truck as a noisy sweat box that was designed by a bunch of guys that had little respect for humanity.
Old Wayne George was buying them in the early 80’s to strip them for running gear. He was running a salvage yard along side his transport operations which is why he was getting them cheaper… I think there are still a few remnants of them down the back of his old place.
I notice there is now a lot of interest in them as they seem to be well represented at the vintage and reunion truck shows.
As I said I would never deny any one their opinion.
It sounds to me as if you may both be right, if the later version was a considerable improvement on the earlier ones! Twenty years is a long time for any production run and a lot happened in the automotive industry between the '60s and the '80s. Any idea when the last ones were built? Robert
ERF-NGC-European:
It sounds to me as if you may both be right, if the later version was a considerable improvement on the earlier ones! Twenty years is a long time for any production run and a lot happened in the automotive industry between the '60s and the '80s. Any idea when the last ones were built? Robert
Robert Seddon Atkinson were obtained in 1974 by International truck division but I.m guessing they were still delivering the Plastic Cab Ozzi atki in the early 80 before there 4870 model badged Atkinson appeared on the scene.
As you say I think the early model were a bit rough around the edges but they had certainly improved by the time I drove one and I.m sure if Jeff had driven the same one as I did at that time he wouldn’t be as anti about the brand.
I.m sure that Atkinson uk saw the writing on the wall in the uk with the arrival of Volvo Scania and decided to possibly try to set up here in Aus and command some market space before the yanks were fully established but regrettably failed mainly because International wanted an assembly line unit as against a custom build which the plastic fantastic was.
Just my opinion.
Reading through the posts,were their chassis,s different to the likes of the uk borderer?If I rememeber rightly one issue with the much loved 3408 was getting it in the chassis due to the angle of the VEE in general.
OzzyHugh:
Robert - no one else answered your question about which tilt you’re backing under ?
Suggest you take the 12m Crane Freuhauf fitted Cooks of Rainham superstructure and a Roland’s tilt or maybe one of my Pacton’s ? ( By the way, they are both over in back of the yard as usual and you’ll need to shunt a couple of others out the way first ) !
So what tilt did you take in the end ?
Best wishes for the New Year to you all - we’ve finished with Christmas by now and hoping for some relief from the humidity - been a very hot & humid 37c for Christmas, so a few cold beers with the family today
And a Happy New Year to you OzzyHugh! To answer your question I’d have a Van Hool tilt as they were quality trailers that sat well on the road even empty! Robert
Hello gents, I saw the below videos on youtube a while ago. I believe she’s an Oz cabbed ■■■■■■■ powered Atkinson, restored to her former glory in the UK. Perhaps the restorer(s) use this site, if so I’d like to say well done.
railstaff:
Reading through the posts,were their chassis,s different to the likes of the uk borderer?If I rememeber rightly one issue with the much loved 3408 was getting it in the chassis due to the angle of the VEE in general.
I knew where one of the 3408 trucks is/was parked and if I go that way i will call in and take a couple of photos if its still there but don’t hold your breath it might be a while.
OzzyHugh:
Robert - no one else answered your question about which tilt you’re backing under ?
Suggest you take the 12m Crane Freuhauf fitted Cooks of Rainham superstructure and a Roland’s tilt or maybe one of my Pacton’s ? ( By the way, they are both over in back of the yard as usual and you’ll need to shunt a couple of others out the way first ) !
So what tilt did you take in the end ?
Best wishes for the New Year to you all - we’ve finished with Christmas by now and hoping for some relief from the humidity - been a very hot & humid 37c for Christmas, so a few cold beers with the family today
And a Happy New Year to you OzzyHugh! To answer your question I’d have a Van Hool tilt as they were quality trailers that sat well on the road even empty! Robert
The first tilt I had was a Freuhauf 12 meter tandem which some one had taken out to 13.7 and added an extra axle. It was quit a nice job and sat fairly well but the back bay was a bit longer than the rest so you had to watch you didn’t get the bars mixed up when you stripped it out. I did put different colour tape round the bars but when one of the other drivers had it for a while for some reason he removed it.
I also has an Essex Trailers Super Cube on 19 inch wheels, which I liked a lot but the Italians thought they could fill it to the top every Friday night so we went back to straight frames…
The best tilt I had was a Cardi which I had with Trans Mondo…that WAS nice… you didn’t need a hammer with that trailer… The sides were separate from the roof so if you were doing overhead stuff you could just roll the roof back. The front a rear tapes were attacked to the roof and came down through the eyes just like a normal tilt so it was easy sealed…
OzzyHugh:
Robert - no one else answered your question about which tilt you’re backing under ?
Suggest you take the 12m Crane Freuhauf fitted Cooks of Rainham superstructure and a Roland’s tilt or maybe one of my Pacton’s ? ( By the way, they are both over in back of the yard as usual and you’ll need to shunt a couple of others out the way first ) !
So what tilt did you take in the end ?
Best wishes for the New Year to you all - we’ve finished with Christmas by now and hoping for some relief from the humidity - been a very hot & humid 37c for Christmas, so a few cold beers with the family today
And a Happy New Year to you OzzyHugh! To answer your question I’d have a Van Hool tilt as they were quality trailers that sat well on the road even empty! Robert
Yes, a quality trailer - I did run a few. Didn’t put them on my list as not well known to U.K. companies. Very expensive and I found difficult to get superstructure parts.
LowRange:
Hello gents, I saw the below videos on youtube a while ago. I believe she’s an Oz cabbed ■■■■■■■ powered Atkinson, restored to her former glory in the UK. Perhaps the restorer(s) use this site, if so I’d like to say well done.
I have just found out the Fibre Glass[plastic] cabs were made in Melbourne and assembled onto the chassis at the International truck assembly line in Dandenong 40 odd kms south of Melbourne.
This one is on display at the South Yorkshire Transport Museum at Rotherham. Hansons of Wakefield had an Australian-spec cab on an 8-wheel tipper back in the day, caught fire and was re-cabbed with a standard version after Atkinson decided a like-for-like replacement would not be economical.
DIG:
I have just found out the Fibre Glass[plastic] cabs were made in Melbourne and assembled onto the chassis at the International truck assembly line in Dandenong 40 odd kms south of Melbourne.
Cheers Dig
That was only at the tail end of things, after International had acquired the business from Seddon Atkinson.
Originally, Atkinson Vehicles (A’Asia) Pty Ltd of Melbourne, assembled CKD kits from the UK, then in 1966 introduced the local cab, from a company called Reinforced Plastics. There were Mk 1 2 & 3 versions of this with various chassis configurations, and the product became almost wholly locally built over time. It was only during the life of the Mk 3 that assembly was transferred to the IH facility
Thanks Chris and Deanb you have certainly dotted all the Is and crossed the Ts on the Atkinson in Os and convinced me it would have held its own in most areas of the road transport world.
Cheers Dig
