The company of Adriaan Beers was blessed with quite some transport-companies with a good
focus on roadtransport and its international future. Some of them are Winder in Limmen, Van
Deudekom in Amsterdam and Goedkoop & de Geus in Rotterdam.
Herewith some pictures of Goedkoop & de Geus, later absorbed into Nedlloyd and DHL Freight.
ERF-Continental:
I don’t know if I inputted one of the accompanying pictures, however I somewhere overheard
that ECT (Europe Container Terminal) in Rotterdam ordered 20 Scania-Vabis’ tractors and that
a variety of cabbuilders had a stake in that order. On the pictures the tractors (the second front
cabbed at the end of the row) are brandnew in 1966.The assembly of the typical grille from the
normal control trucks is catching!
The number plate on the tractor is prefixed UB, indicating that it went on the road between 7th September 1960 and 25th April 1962.
Please can you confirm if the coachbuilder was Paul?
Well spotted, the details…
Indeed and ECT (European Conatiner Terminal) started effectively in May 1966 in the “Eemshaven”
with SeaLand-business (established by the inventor McLean, a former US-truckdriver dealing with the
long time needed to load and unload trucks/trailers and therefor invented the box, which was at first
a lift of the whole trailer), some time later in the Prinses Margriethaven with the ACL-business and the
Hapag-Lloyd-business. Understandably the whole operation started earlier than 1966 by feeder-services
of containers from supplier to the terminal and preparation in general. The registration stays with the
chassis from day 1 till the end, so previous other owners? Somehow Beers was involved to provide and
deliver about 20 Scania-Vabis-chassis with then a necessity for front-cabbed chassis to gain extra volume
by about 7 cbm.
To be honest no exact info on the cab-builder but my first guess is a mix of Paul and Hoekstra or at
least a modification of one of them.
A better front-view of the ECT LV-75
Herewith a rear-view of the ECT LV-75. I am in close contact with a retired operations manager
from ECT who possibly might share some history on the Scania-Vabis fleet from the sixties.
Again some input on this sunny long-weekend Sunday!
Mind the BEERS-BUS (in fact a Scania Vabis B-22 with a 5.90 metres wheelbase) with body-work of Verheul.
The B-21 had a 5.25 metres wheelbase
More to come soon on the bus-chassis as a fundamental start of front-cabbed trucks
ERF-Continental:
As promissed more on the ECT Scania-Vabis LV-75 from 1966Picture: A. Groeneveld
The dates do not add up. The L76 and LB76 had been in production for 3 years in 1966. Where would Beers have got the L75 chassis from? The other LV75, apparently from the same batch, was registered in 1960, as I pointed out above.
Point taken! Possibly (one of) the ECT-LV-75 IS a LV-55 from about 1959, more on that to be expected soon.
About a ‘general’ LV-75…bear in mind that both Beers and Denonville were MAIN importers from Scania-Vabis
since the second half of the fourties and to serve their customers they carried a variety of stock…whereas
ECT for sure prepared their business with procurement of chassis and trailers earlier. Perhaps a subcontractor
was involved with ‘old’ stock (when Beers foresaw the introduction of a home-made Scania-Vabis-cab) chassis.
The registration (UB) remains with the chassis when sold and/or even technically moderated and/or changed.
A type-approval of a LV-55 and a LV-75 is likely, but a (by yourself) suggested “LV-86” it is doubtful as Beers
would benefit from the LB-76 in the 5 years in which Scania-Vabis managed to sell about 1.000 chassis a year.
Moreover there was no need for pushing the COE-market anymore as Europe changed a lot in abbandoning the
drawbar-trailer configuration to tractor-trailer.
Attached a LV-55, when needed a spec on the L55 is available
Another LV-55 from Muller-Holten with a cattle-trailer.
The ECT-UB-registration is confirmed to be Hoekstra-cabbed and indeed also A LV-55
Also confirmed…a Van Eck Cabbed LVS-75 from 1963
Just found a very good looking scalemodel from Van Staalduinen’s LVS-75 and with respect to copyright
Good to have scalemodels and pictures amongst the handful of preserved scale 1:1 models.
Another nice example of a scalemodel from J.A. van Spronsen in Monster, an early customer of Beers.
Also a picture from Joh. de Waal in Werkendam, very active in extraordinary transports for contracters,
now clear to see it is a LV-55-tractor, the L-55 being introduced in 1959.
An update: ECT had more orless about 20 Scania-Vabis LV’s in their fleet, however
just 10 of them where property-owned for use on the yard and 10 were owned by
subcontractors doing both in- and outside the yard, hence the (semi-)daycab.
On a first thought the majority were Paul- and Hoekstra-cabbed and possibly more
information on the ECT-fleet is available soon.
No spectacular news on the ECT-fleet…but the majority seemed to be old(er) registered chassis
(possibly out of some fear to get stuck with the stock of old-fashioned chassis) with Paul-cabbed
parts with some influence when it comes to Hoekstra. By then, mid-sixties, the market was very
nervous on what to buy for what type of work, length, sleeper etc.
What do you know about the forward-control Scania Vabis’ vehicles produced before the introduction of the LV75?
ERF-Continental:
Also confirmed…a Van Eck Cabbed LVS-75 from 1963
From 1963-1968 the spectacular 76-series came on the market and that was a genuine asset for the transport-industry!
Attached some pictures in front of the Södertälje-HQ
Some info on the Beers’ “Handyman” coming soon
