Lawrence Dunbar:
Hi Carl good stuff & Info, The Guy Big J, Has a Glasgow Reg ,, Not your usual Durham ones , Regards Larry.
No Larry we bought it second hand and a lot older than we usually would have.
Amongst the tractor units we had we had bought 3 new Leyland Lynx tractor units 28 ton GTW. In reality we only needed about 24 ton GTW and we had an AEC Mandator & A Foden at hand to use on any heavier loads. The Lynx with their fixed head engines and dodgy gearboxes were a real headache & parts were nigh on impossible to get hold of. We had one Bedford TK and quite a few Ford D series abou 20 ton GVW and we had one Lynx was out of action for about a month or so, so we bought an oldish Atkinson with 180 Gardiner, which was painted over a weekend & in action within about 3 days. It was supposed to be just a stop gap, but the driver who’d been with us over 20 years, didn’t want his Lynx back & so we continued running it. It was cheaper to run than either the Bedford TK or the Ford D series. Talk of using a sledgehammer to split a nut. We therefore decided to buy this Guy to keep it company, which led onto us buying 7 ERFs with Gardner, most replacing D series Fords.