Davidoff:
Perhaps I have rose spectacles on but really I think it is quite a nice lorry. Also, the restoration is top class so she really does look like new from factory which helps…
Bonne nuit
Junior…I always compare the lorry manufacturing in the UK to the Motorcycle manufacturing of roughly the same period, the '60’s.
In the '60’s as a young lad, keen on bikes, I had to buy what the companies produced…standard motorcycles…If I wanted to make it into a sports “cafe racer” or touring bike, then I had to strip the bike, and buy new parts, like the tank, seat, clip-ons, fairing, etc etc…The M/C companies did not listen to what the public wanted, “This is what we produce, like it or lump it” attitude.
Then along came the Japanese…“What would you like young man” a cafe-racer, a touring bike, a commuter ? we will make what YOU want…The M/C industry produced a green paper in the '60’s, there was no need to worry about these Japanese up starts, they wouldn’t last 5 minuets…5 years later there was hardly a M/C industry left …
Similarly the lorry making industry suffered the same lethargic insight, often on here you will find old drivers saying that when they designed a British lorry, the last thing they did was manage to squeeze a driver in somewhere…then along came Volvo…by the time they got their act together…too little to late…no British lorry maker left…all gone…
Rose tinted glasses ? no not really, there were some good wagons came out of the UK, sturdy, economical, reliable…but with very little thought of the poor old drivers sat on a hard seat with a noisy engine right next to their ears…
I think we “oldies” look back on them as “That’s what they made, so that’s what we drove” but with fondness ? not sure about that…When I look back on my favorite old lorries, it’s the F88, F89, Scania Vabis, 110…not a British one…