What is the oldest truck or trailer still in regular commercial use.
To start of the company I work for has a 1983 Crane Freuhauf triaxle curtainside trailer still in regular use.
I’ve been reliably informed that some of the bottom discharge CF powder tankers that were used by W&J Riding on the ICI Corvic job (going back to the early seventies) were modified with new (& additional) axles and suspension and later sold onto Sam Ostle who are still using them.
The company where i park my truck at night still have in daily use a
1977 (S reg) Daf 3300 6x2 space cab
and it is totally mint. they also have 2 spare cabs for it so it looks like its going to be around a lot longer
simon
One of our customers (quite a big building contracter) have got a B reg Leyland Freighter (16 or 17 tonner) that’s still going strong and doesn’t seem to have an easy life either.
Another customer has a C reg 7.5t Leyland Roadrunner that’s stretched to max length for roof truss work. It looks ridiculous.
They are neither particularly old in my opinion (I see older all the time) but these two stand out.
The firm I work for have a reputation for running old crap (they buy outright and they aren’t a haulage firm), but at the moment it just so happens the oldest is an X Reg (which is very, very tatty).
SimonRS2K:
The company where i park my truck at night still have in daily use a 1977 (S reg) Daf 3300 6x2 space cab…
CLASSIC TRUCK 
Always wanted one of those when they first came out…even with the brown velour upholstery 
simon do me favour ask em if theyd sell it as ive been looking for one to restore. 
Heres one of the spare cabs they have
simon
Er…thats not a space cab simon!!
Unless I’m very much mistaken, that looks like an ex-Oswald Ingham Daf.
FWIW - the 3300 (in whatever axle layout) wasn’t in production in 1977, it didn’t reach us until 1983/4.
marky:
FWIW - the 3300 (in whatever axle layout) wasn’t in production in 1977, it didn’t reach us until 1983/4.
Ive no idea marky, all i know is it says 3300ATI Spacecab down the side and the reg no goes something like JHO ***S. I’ll try and get some pics at the weekend
bullitt:
Er…thats not a space cab simon!!
I know that, That is one of the spare cabs they have 
Simon
If it’s a 1977 S-reg, it almost certainly has a newer cab on it. The ATi range was only around from 1984.
Mark,
Maybe not ATi, but this 3300 was new in February '80. Waiting to tip in London docks with my son Steve (12 year old ‘second man’) at the wheel. First load with the new motor after spending a full morning getting up the snowbound slope of Eco’s Leicester depot to go and load. No diff lock. 
Salut, David.
S-reg then probably a 2800 with the 276hp (I think) engine. Keith Courts used to run one out of our farm down in Cornwall. Lovely motor.
Merc 1626 on a T plate so its at least 78, it had a small wheel pusher axle fitted when the 38 tonne limit came in and seems to have always been on containers. I’ve seen it 3 times recently and walked past the solo unit a few weeks ago so the driver or owner must still live local to me.
There is also one or possibly two B plate Sed-Atki 401 6x2 units on containers dead rough though, I saw one on windy hill not long since.
There was 65 ERF tipper in the Nantwich area still working with its original owner featured in a vintage magazine not long back and B reg MAN 16 tonner cattle wagon from the Wrexham area could still be knocking about
boden you’ve reminded me of another one…
There’s a B reg MAN 16 tonne I guess (4 wheeler anyway) tipper that’s in great condition often parked up at a timber yard we collect from…looks like it’s been overhauled and resprayed.
Never seen it on the road though…and I usually see the same lorries out about doing local work like we do.
Andyroo
You’ve reminded me of a few more: a C or D reg Man 16 ton tipper in good nick with a local builder and a Foden 16 tonner tipper, again C or D pulling one of those boiler trailer thingys with a floor laying firm, it must have done a lot of standing around but looks ok
Last year I saw a couple of Sed- Atki rigids, an A reg 201 and a B reg 301 with those same boiler type bodies.
One of the strangest thing I saw with regard to old wagons was one night about 5 years ago on the M6 near Keele southbound, when I eventually caught up with what turned out to be an AEC Mercury which was too old to have a suffix letter so it must have been 62 or 63. He was knocking on at definitely over 50mph and may have been just bought by a collector but really looked like he was just heading home empty. I’m a big AEC fan so was well impressed.
it’s only 2 years ago that a lad who subs for us got rid of his S reg F10 with globetrotter cab - almost last trip was a concrete paver for baku
mind you, it was a bit like the old farmer’s hammer - replaced axles, replaced cab, recon engine over years, was sorry to see her go in the end though 
There’s an old grey F88 on an “N” suffix running around the Imingham area, pulling 40ft containers. It’s a day cab with an extra axle added. The axles are so close together it’s hard to detect a fuel tank and it could be described as neither a traditional 6x2 nor a Chinese Six!
The DAF was a 2800 until about V/W reg, 1982ish and then it grew up into a 3300.
My only claim to fame was that I had the first ATi in Hull and that was on a C plate, 1986. The truck was in a lot of DAF brochures parked under the Humber Bridge and weighing in at Smiths Crisps in Paulsgrove.
I think the 3600 came a year later in the UK
Limey:
There’s an old grey F88 on an “N” suffix running around the Imingham area, pulling 40ft containers. It’s a day cab with an extra axle added. The axles are so close together it’s hard to detect a fuel tank and it could be described as neither a traditional 6x2 nor a Chinese Six!
That was a 4x2 sleeper-cabbed F88, but the owner cut the back half of the cab off so he could put the fuel tank on the back when the additional axle was fitted.
The back panel is actually made of marine-ply.