What a great story, love this thread. 
Ah !!! the good old car-work! Hardly a car job took place that didn.t end in some kind of catastrophe! I can,t remember the amount of times I went into the office to complain about the tackle we were made to work with and with no positive answers. āJust do your best,nothing to worry aboutā Brian, do you remember the two old hanging garment trailers(FM 1,FM 2) that Alan Sewell converted down by the railway at Dunton Green? Alan was asked to convert them into two-deck car trailers. He got all the tackle in to create a top deck that had a rear section 16 feet long which hinged and was raised and lowered by two blocks and tackles in each rear corner. The idea was you lowered the deck until you could attach the 12 foot loading ramps onto the back and then you drove the car up the ramps and deck until the front wheels were just, and ONLY just over the angle of the hinged section. You then, with heart in mouth and a twitchy bum placed the car in first gear and applied the handbrake as hard as you could in order to then get out of the car. You then made your way to the two blocks and tackles to raise the deck sufficiently so as not to ground out the belly of the car when moving it forward! With this done you could then return to the car and drive it forward to secure it for transit. I think at the time a purpose built car trailer was about 12-15000 quid. Alan sweated over about 3 weekends on each trailer and when finished Peter gave him 25 quid for each trailer!! Back in 82 I think, I turned up at Browns Lane,Jaguar with one of these trailers to collect the then latest Daimler Sovereign Vanden Plas saloon, V12 and all the bells and whistles etc. The Jaguar exhibitions guy waited until I had set everything up to place the car onto the top deck and then bdrove the car out to the ramps. He got out,took one look at the set-up and said something like"have you any idea what this car is worth?, I,m not even going to watch what you do next, I daren,t!" Of course,being used to it I loaded it ok but it didn,t alter the fact that another embarassing moment had taken place thanks once again to THAT kit!! There were several other car movements I did which didn,t go so well but I,ll save them for another day! Interesting to see that two of the Lutz cars were wrongly 1977 registered! Over to you Brian!
Heavens, I remember that terrible trailer. I have never possessed a car which had a handbrake that would have been able to hold it on such an incline trying to reach that upperdeck. Itās imprinted on my memory - the taking of a death defying run up the ramps usually in a terribly expensive car - from ground to lorry and then from first ramp to the really, really steep rampā¦ Then holding my foot hard down on the brake while others worked the pulleys as fast as they could.
I remember loading racing cars into a supercube and Wardy nailing down the blocks around the tyres actually managing to put the nails through the tyres to the floor. On arrival - I donāt remember where now - the people at the expo werenāt terribly pleased (to say the least).
There was the story (not mine - Preecey?) of unloading Donald Campbellās Bluebird in Berlin (I think it was) and as it was so long as it came down the ramps something small and sharp caught the bodywork and made a hole creating a little coil of metal like an opened sardine canā¦ I had to take the Bluebird back to Beaulieu and Staggie warned me to be careful and made lots inappropriate jokes.
I think Nott Northerner has a jolly story of unloading the then secret Ford Cargo in Essen with Herr Jung, the head of Ford Germany and his sidekick (name?) - who being German dressed as Sherlock Holmes - who tried to grab the Ford, as the winch broke, it flew across the warehouse into the wall as it dragged him in his cape with it.
One jolly trip I took Fordās RS200 in a box trailer to Sardinia via La Spezia. The ship was a container ship and one of the crew had been turfed out of his cabin to make a place for me. I wasnāt overly popular not just because of that but because Heysel Stadium disaster had just happened and lots of Italian football fans had been killed by English football thugs. The only food they ate on the ship was a bowl of plain pastaā¦
Mind you I had fun posing in the RS200 down by all the yachts in the harbour. I have never been so popular with the female of the speciesā¦
Hi Efes, the two German Ford guys were Rolf Jung who was senior engineer/manager and Ralf Pelzer his shadow! If you remember once you,d raised up the top deck high enough to clear the side supports you then pulled out two extenders(one each side) from the rear crossmember of the top deck. These had āTā shaped end-caps welded to them in order to slot inside the side supports when you lowered the deck back down so that the deck wasn,t riding on the block and tackles alone. On one of my trips I was sent down to Monte Carlo on a Ford ā ā ā ā ā ā 3 clinic. I had the 4 comparison vehicles in my two deck trailer and it wasn,t until I arrived at the venue that I realised that at some point during the tail-end of my journey one of these bloody end caps had suffered a catastrophic weld failure which had allowed one side of the deck to drop down neatly onto the roof of a Toyota Corolla underneath it!! I knew it must have happened towards the end of my journey because I had checked in the back at least 3 times en route ! The Ford guys weren,t best pleased but at the same time slightly amused that it had happened to a Toyota! Incidentally do you remember the names of the two Ford exhibition guys? ā¦Top man back then was Tony Harper and his side kick was Bernard Foyster both of whom had been colleagues of PC,s when he was at Ford. Incidentally Bernard Foyster was godfather to Peter,s kids. They were both top guys who always made sure that you were fed and watered admirably and put up for the night too!
Trevor and I had drawn the short straws. āYou boys are to be honoured with the job of transporting Mr Bob Lutzās own collection of cars from Warley to the export packers somewhere to the west of Londonā we were told in the Promotor office before we left. Mr Bob Lutz - the most powerful auto mogul in the world. Fordās top man. Yes, it certainly felt like we had drawn the short straws as we loaded the first two cars in Trevors trailer in the huge arena that was the private road in front of Fords head office at Warley. The arena where thousands of eyes belonging to the suits, the yes men, the creeps watched our every move. Well, not quite. They were watching the Messiah, the Great One, their leader Mr Bob Lutz as he drove the cars into the back of our inadequate tilts. Hoping for the chance later to tell him how great he looked in the cars and what a great job he had done.
Once Trevorās trailer was laced up he pulled forward and I took his place with mine. We then went through the same ritual as before. Removing all loose boards from the sides and trying our best to stop others from jumping out. Why oh why were we here with tilts? Why hadnāt we hired in box trailers. I believe the job had come in that very morning and we didnāt have time to find box trailers and kit them out. No doubt it was mentioned to Dave Stagg that this was a special job for Bob Lutz and he thought āno way is another transport company getting the bragging rights to such a prestigious jobā. So here we were with tilts that had been on the Yugo run for years and were due for imminent retirement along with us if this job went āā ā ā ā upā.
We carefully lined the ramps up, doubly checking they were securely hooked into the bits of 2 x 2 angle iron welded to the back of the trailer. The Ford chap in charge of loading was told we were ready and he hurried away to inform Mr Bob Lutz he could load the next car when he had finished his coffee and biscuits.(I guessed that bit about the coffee and biscuits. It might have been tea and cakes). Mr lutz then drove another of his cars up to the ramp and straight into the trailer. This boy learnt quick. He jumped out and headed back for the last one. He was back immediately with the last car and headed towards the ramp much to fast. Trevor not caring for his own life threw himself in front of the car to slow him down. Maybe Trevor saw it as the heroic way out. Better to go out a hero than be blamed a failure for the rest of your life. The driver that was responsible for losing the Ford contract. I was a bit miffed! Why hadnāt I thought of that.
After Mr Lutz got over the shock of almost writing off his car by running over Trevor, I pulled Trevor to one side (have dramatised this bit somewhat but we did have to slow him down though) the final car was loaded.
It was here that my mind really ran riot and my imagination took over for a brief spell. As Mr Bob Lutz, the Messiah, emerged from the back of the trailer I could imagine the thousands of windows above us being thrown wide open and much whooping and hollering and chanting of Mr Lutz, Mr Lutz, Mr Lutz building to a crescendo. He would then step down to take his acclaim, very much as Mr Bridger, the crime syndicate Mr Big, played by Noel Coward in The Italian Job did when word came through that the heist had been successful and the gold was theirs. (Mr Bridger was of course banged up in jail and it was his fellow convicts who were chanting his name). My Lutz was then walking in front of the baying, fawning crowds, beaming up at them, slowly raising his hand to them, acknowledging the plaudits and soaking up the adulation of the suits, the yes men, the creeps. Yes, Mr Lutz was their man.
Trevor and I still had a job to do though but most of the excitement was over. We drove carefully into London down the A12 making our way onto the Embankment and out onto the A4. It was there on the Embankment that my imagination took over again. I braked hard, my trailer slid around towards the Thames and came to a rest overhanging the river. It was see-sawing on the edge, just like the coach hanging over the precipice in the Alps with the gold on board, again from a scene in The Italian Job. But thankfully it was all in my imagination. The place we had to deliver to was near Heathrow. Once there we opened the back of the trailers praying no damage had been done and thankfully none had been.
I often think somebody up there was looking after us that day and it could only have been one person. Thank you so much Henry, you obviously didnāt want us to lose your work.
Iām more than half way reading through this post and loving it! I spend a lot of time reading the old time stuff on TN and feel sad I was born too late to have been involved in the āgood olā daysā of truck driving. I started driving in '95 which is more or less when it started going downhill. My dad dabbled in driving back in the early 70ās and did a trip to Iran with I think cadbuys chocolate, he may have done 2 but Iām not sure. Definitely did one in a crusader, I still remember him coming home in the truck then setting off from there, I would have been 3 or 4 I reckon. His main business though was buying and repairing smashed cars. In the late 70ās and through the 80ās he used to buy cars, mostly metros in Belgium, bring them back, repair then convert them to RHD which was pretty straight forward as the body shells were identical. Into the 90ās he worked for a Gloucester salvage company as their buyer which meant he spent every week going to Germany and driving round all the British forces camps viewing damaged cars. They had the contract to buy all cars from Norwich union who insured most if not all the squaddies. They were so busy they bought a 9 car wagon and drag and had it all painted up the SWS into Europe (South West Salvage) they filled it with cars every week!! Good drivers them squaddies [emoji23] Anyway, my dad was always going over in a car so couldnāt get into the drivers lounge on the p&o boats Dover - Calais so he used to approach drivers and get in with them as a āmateā. I asked him the other day if he remembered promotor which he said he did and said he knew a few of the drivers quite well.
Anyway, sorry to ā ā ā ā in on the thread but just wondered if anybody remembered their drag? It was a scania.
Morning nomiS36. Glad to have you post on the Promotor drivers thread. Please feel free to do so at any time and that goes for anyone else who feels like it. Been trying to get my brother to join in. He drove for Marley out of Harrietshem in Kent for a number of years but heās not very computer literate.
Interesting story about your father. I also drove a Crusader in the 70ās but only did Uk work. I have attached a photo of my Crusader. Iām guessing your father didnāt have a sleeper cab then. It would have been a very hard trip if that was so.
I did very little repat of wrecked cars but did do a couple of jobs out of Germany late 70ās. Canāt remember much about them except I had one of the trailers nottsnortherner and efes have been talking about on their recent posts. The trailer was either FM1 or FM2. There was a winch fitted with allowed me to pull the wrecks aboard. I was so lucky never having to use the top deck on those trailers. I remember hearing horror stories from drivers who had loaded cars on them and now nearly forty years later I am hearing those same stories again.
Great stuff.
Hi sandway, I really donāt know what his crusader was but as you say back then sleeper cabs were a rarity. I do remember him telling me about lighting fires under the diesel tank trying to thaw out the fuel 
I doubt heāll admit to it but I remember my dearly departed grandmother telling me his boss had contacted her to see if she had heard from him because they hadnāt for a long while so I can only assume he got lost maybe or had massive customs problemsā ā ? He is still with us (turns 72 next month) so before itās too late I really must have a sit down chat with him about his ME escapade 
Unfortunately heās not as nostalgic as me so taking photoās has never been his thing but he does have a good memory like you so will remember a lot Iām sure. When I get to speak to him Iāll bring up the promotor name and see if that brings anything up. I do know at one point of his euro car salvage buying days he had an old marina that he used to park in the docks at calais and leave it there. Heād then go round all the drivers and find one that was going his way and hitch a lift home. Then to get back to calais heād call on an old friend called Bernard who Iām sure drove for lloyds of ludlow and weād all take my dad to meet Bernard as he was passing through our home town of Bridgnorth on his way out.
I was just having idle thoughts now Iām parked up for the day. Reading through all the posts on this thread it struck me how the driving game has changed as regards waiting times. You all talk about being at customs for days upon days or at delivery points for weeks! If I get held up for half an hour where I am now itās a headache, an hour is becoming a big problem Itās all rush rush rush theses days and everybody knows exactly where you are all the time and can speak to you immediately 
nomiS36:
I was just having idle thoughts now Iām parked up for the day. Reading through all the posts on this thread it struck me how the driving game has changed as regards waiting times. You all talk about being at customs for days upon days or at delivery points for weeks! If I get held up for half an hour where I am now itās a headache, an hour is becoming a big problemCouldnāt put up with all that. You really were your own boss in our day. No mobiles or tracking devices. Day or two off at Kavala beach on the way home. No probs. Even catching the ferry at Zeebrugge. For most drivers it was a chase to catch the evening boat. Me, I would pull into the last services on the motorway before the Zeebrugge turnoff and bed down for the night. In the morning I would poodle down to the port and catch the next available boat arriving home that evening.
Message for Sandway, hey Brian, just noticed on one of your Bob Lutz pics there is a distant view of the side of your Scania behind Trevors and its got no sign-writing! How come?
Morning nottsnortherner and efes. I have attached a photo, one that I posted a few months back, showing what I believe is either FM1 or FM2, Promotors enclosed car transporters. The ones with the death defying steep ramps. Perhaps you can confirm the trailer depicted is one of this famous pair. I was vary rarely allowed near such high tech equipment. Dave āStaggieā Stag, our transport manager at the time no doubt thought it best to keep me away from the public eye as much as possible. Best to keep me enclosed in a dust storm where if I bumped into something it was likely to be nothing more important than a camel.
This though brings back memories of an incident that took place after the Bob Lutz job. I was staying in the Esteghlal Hotel in Tehran. It was the old Hilton Hotel and about a kilometre east of the Tehran Fairground. I used my lorry to commute to work everyday leaving the hotel about seven thirty in the morning. I always parked in the quieter of the two car parks and this particular morning was no different except I was in a hurry as I had to meet someone. I walked to the drivers side door, unlocked it and clambered aboard. I started the engine selected reverse and swung the steering wheel round as I backed out. Immediately there was a terrible screeching noise as metal was ripped and pummelled into submission. I braked and thought āwhat the hell was thatā. There was no bollard there last night when I parked up. Whats happening!. I got down from the cab and walked round to the passengers side to see what damage I had done to my lorry but I was astounded to see that sometime in the night a Hillman Hunter had been parked right up tight to my unit in an otherwise empty car park. I hadnāt seen him as I approached from the drivers side.
It seems the driver had slept in his car that night and had gone into the hotel for breakfast. Now, if youād been in Tehran at this time you will know there were thousands of these Hillman cars on the road. All of them damaged and falling apart. Except this one car I had managed to mangle. Up to that point it had been perhaps the only car in the whole of Iran that hadnāt had a ding. Until I arrived.
Believe it or not Staggie had flown into Tehran the day before and it was him who had to sort the mess out with a very irate Iranian driver whilst I hurried off to work. Perhaps you can understand now why he went into manic depression mode everytime a car job came in if I was around.
Getting back to your post regarding no sign writing on the lorry nottsnortherner. I was looking to say something witty but my minds a blank at the moment. I do know though that unless I have my dates wrong, and thats highly possible, my lorry wasnāt new at that time so perhaps I was driving one belonging to another driver and the workshop hadnāt got round to finishing it off.
Mornin Sandway! I think you are underestimating Staggies belief in your ācar handlingā abilities because I was on that job with you along with Mr. Barclay and correct me if I,m wrong but didn,t you drive EPU 305T? If so then on that job you had been charged with bringing the cars to the show, as the trailer number plate plainly shows at the back of the notorious FM! My truck would have been the one to your right and parked at the front of both is a āPenfoldsā hired Daf which I think Johnny B had been forced to drive because his unit was still being serviced or repaired, much to his annoyance! Also if you or anybody is wondering why with such a strong Ford association,were we doing a job for Alfa the answer is simpleā¦The exhibition manager at Alfa used to work at Ford and worked with us many times so when he needed transport for his first Alfa show the phonecall was automatic! He was a nice guy but I,m afraid time has dulled my memory regarding his name!
Nottsnortherner:
Mornin Sandway! I think you are underestimating Staggies belief in your ācar handlingā abilities because I was on that job with you along with Mr. Barclay and correct me if I,m wrong but didn,t you drive EPU 305T? If so then on that job you had been charged with bringing the cars to the show, as the trailer number plate plainly shows at the back of the notorious FM! My truck would have been the one to your right and parked at the front of both is a āPenfoldsā hired Daf which I think Johnny B had been forced to drive because his unit was still being serviced or repaired, much to his annoyance! Also if you or anybody is wondering why with such a strong Ford association,were we doing a job for Alfa the answer is simpleā¦The exhibition manager at Alfa used to work at Ford and worked with us many times so when he needed transport for his first Alfa show the phonecall was automatic! He was a nice guy but I,m afraid time has dulled my memory regarding his name!
Blimey, youāre right Tony. I am hitched up to one of the infamous trailers. I could have sworn the only job I did with one of them was when I dropped off a car in Liege and another in Koln and then reloaded two wrecked cars from Germany.
Don,t worry about it Brian!! its called āgetting oldā I suffer from it too!!!
Going back to my posts concerning the delivery of Bob Lutz cars to the export packers carried out by Trevor Thayre and myself. Iāve just found a couple of photos of Trevor the first one of which Iām posting now. I will have to post the second one as soon as my scanner starts working again.
The photo could have been taken in the evening after the successful delivery of Bob Lutz cars. He had obtained a clear signature on his delivery docs and he hadnāt lost his job nor had Promotor lost the Ford business. What a great result!
Just goes to show how that Ford work really could drive you to drink and Trevor was virtually a teatotaler.
Iāve found a few pics taken during a Ford Clinic in Regensburg, Bavaria either late 7oās or early 80ās. Lorries donāt feature much, just us drivers doing jobs that needed to be done and sitting around getting bored. Weather was great and weād found somewhere quiet to park up for three or four days. There were five lorries/drivers involved on this job. Drivers were Trevor Thayre, Graham Bertram, Ramsey Patterson, Alan and myself.
Now please donāt think us drivers clamoured for these Ford Clinic jobs. The work was hard, dirty, boring and mentally taxing. Well, thats what nottsnortherner told everyone as he tried to keep the auto work for himself. Canāt understand why he didnāt feature on this job though! Perhaps Staggie had sussed him out.
The attached photo is of Trevor Thayre (not a pleasant sight) doing his ablutions and washing his clothes. Just goes to show how bored heād become or was it that us other drivers had all complained about the smell!!!
It seems Iām fighting a battle, one I canāt possibly win on my own. A battle against one of the largest companies in the UK if not the world. BT/Openreach are in my eyes the guilty party. In the last three weeks I have been off line more times than I have been on. Iāve had four Openreach engineers out, with another booked for next Tuesday to try and sort out the problem and Iāve made countless calls to India. Iām not the only one round here to complain. Many are in the same boat. Now call me a cynic if you like but after months of waiting Ultra Fast Broadband is about to be fired up in our area. Speeds up to 330 meg will be on offer and BT/Openreach want us to sign up for the new service asap. In the meantime we are all suffering from slow speeds and faulty lines!!! Yes, I am a cynic.
Anyway Iām on line at present and hope I can post this before I lose the connection again.
Here are three more photos from the Ford Clinic job we did in Regensberg many years ago. Nothing extra special I know. Just showing how some of us drivers passed the time.
Haha, I love pictures like that. Theyāre great for those pictured to look back on in years to come and have their memories jogged what they were doing and where.
Anyway, as regards BT/openreachā¦you have my sympathy regarding the Indian call centre. Iāve been there a few times myself and found them THE most frustrating company to deal with ever! Waiting weeks and weeks for an appointment for an āengineerā to flick a switch to get me online for them to simply not turn up should be punishable by death [emoji35] The problem is whoever you decide to use as your provider doesnāt help, so you canāt just tell BT to stick it to teach then a lesson because all the other providers have to use openreach, aka BT. Talk about having a monopoly [emoji35]
Ford Clinic job. Regensburg.
Going by the attached photo we must have been getting desperately bored by this time. Trevor, the lucky boy in the middle, is being attended to by Graham on the left, Pat standing behind him, Alan on the right and me at his feet.
I canāt remember any bars or restaurants nearby. Which perhaps was just as well. However, we did have a dog of a German woman visit us every now and again. She was so bad though only Pat would have anything to do with her.
