just wasn’t considered viable.
My own grandfather made the switch
from horse and bullock teams to the
earliest motor transport, and like many
others of my age, I was driving semis
as soon as I could reach the pedals.
We thought that wearing big hats and
army overcoats made us invincible.
After all, there wasn’t much traffic to
contend with. Old rigs were plentiful
then and could easily be purchased for
next to nothing at the local scrapyard or
machinery dealer. Trade-ins were often
parked at the back of truck dealerships,
awaiting their turn for the gas axe!
In my youth, British models were
frowned upon as the American trucks
took centre stage, and as they were faded
out, there was a noticeable trend towards
the Japanese and European models. The
early misconception that the Europeans
couldn’t handle the heat was put to bed
as the Deutz and 1418 Benz found their
way into company fleets and it wasn’t
long before Volvo and Scania models
were seen as luxury drives.
Before this, with the traditional truck
brands, driver comfort hadn’t really been
a concern. If you wanted to be a truck
driver, you’d just have to “toughen up”;
put up with the conditions and learn the
tricks to keeping those under-powered
rigs rolling. Making miles was the name
of the game and that involved double
loading, running two log books and
dodging the scalies. Sleeping and eating
were way down on your list of priorities.
At one stage, you could walk throughrow after row at wreckers where sad old
bangers were rusting away or stripped
down until they were simply scrap
metal. So just how did this world-wide
movement of collecting and restoring
old worn-out rigs, despite the sometimes
prohibitive cost, come about? How
was it that searching the Internet to
get every original part became such an
obsession with a sector of the trucking
fraternity? And how did the practice of
upholsterers and automotive painters
performing their magic so that proud
owners could show their reborn trucks
in pristine condition all over the country
become so trendy?
Well, the answer to that is partly
because social media has spread
information and popularized the hobbyAt the Three Counties Showground
in the Malverns, UK.ONCE, COMMER KNOCKERS, MAPLE
LEAF CHEVS, AB AND R190 INTERS,
DIAMOND TS AND B-MODEL MACKS
WERE EASY TO FIND, BUT THEN THE LAW
OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND KICKED IN.
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