Truck & Driver July 2019^3
This issue pays tribute to British truck
makers. The story of the industry is
full of ifs, buts and maybes and, with
the benefit of hindsight, we have
learned a lot. Could we still have
British truck brands today? I’d say
yes, but only if we had some sort of
Brit-truck Time Machine™. Big changes would have to be
made as far back as the ’50s and ’60s for companies to
be viable in the Euro 6 era because of the globalisation
of vehicle manufacturing and the immense complexity of
today’s trucks. Peter Symon’s fantastic article starting on
p36 details the rollercoaster fortunes of our truck makers
in the modern era. Much of their downfall is down to the
fact we’re an island nation, driving on the opposite side of
the road to the rest of Europe, with many small-vehicle
assemblers. AEC, Guy, Scammell, Thornycroft, Albion,
Maudslay, Leyland, Foden, ERF, Seddon, Atkinson... and
more. British Leyland swallowed up many of those and
became huge, too huge. Personally I think the North Westmanufacturers would all need to have joined forces in the
1960s to create a large independent truck maker.
That company would have had to successfully export
into Europe, so they’d have had to adopt turbos and
synchro ’boxes and heaters way earlier than they did.
Remember, basic, slow but incredibly tough vehicles
powered by naturally-aspirated Gardner engines were
what hauliers wanted to buy. Many people considered
turbocharging to be nothing more than a fad. Continental
imports ran at higher weights in harsher conditions in
their homelands, and as a result were way more
advanced than our own vehicles. But UK manufacturers
did leave us some great trucks. Two of the best
examples, Alpha and ECX, are on p58, and the legendary
Les Baston and his 39-year-old Seddon Atkinson on p82.
Remember too that Paccar’s Leyland
Trucks facility is thriving; Daf is the most
popular truck brand in the UK, and it’s
great to know that most of the Dafs on
our road are built right here in Britain.Welcome
Editor Dougie Rankine – 020 8912 2131; [email protected] Deputy editor Chris Turner
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Display sales Barnaby Goodman-Smith – 020 8912 2128; [email protected]
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Editor in chief – Road, DVV Media Christopher Walton Contributors Numa Randell (art/design) Main cover image Tom CunninghamCOMMENT