Carryfast you lay the blame at the door of the bosses for wanting gaffer’s wagons, which led to the demise of their market share and restricted the British manufacturers/assemblers to making such lorries and yet those same gaffers went out and bought Volvo and Scanias (which do not fit into the gaffer’s wagon criteria) in droves.
Am I missing the point here or are you talking ■■■■■■■■ again?
I think personally that driver opinion counted for quite a lot, it still does as you can see by the amount of megasupertoptrotterXXLs running around on day work because the gaffers know they have to run decent plant to get drivers.
As good as the Brits became in the mid 70s with the B series, NGC, 400 series etc most drivers still wanted an F88 or a 111 and the sales figures prove that this is exactly what they got.