I had a look at the MVT web-site, pay doesn’t seem good but they do offer a Harley -Davidson to the driver with the best fuel consumption record. Here’s a picture of the wheel trims that they use to help the mpg.
Also so photos of some old marques that you don’t see everyday. How many do you know?
Ok, I’LL make a start, feel free to correct me or help out!
1 International Prostar+, Mine is the same in black and no silly savage wheel trims lol.
2 Brocklehurst
3 not sure
4 not sure
5 Marmon
6 White
7 GMC Brigadeir
8 Mack
Paul
Here’s a couple of pics of my Marmon 86 p which I imported and restored. Now been sold to Southern ireland collector
ChrisArbon:
Some nice pictures of old American stuff on that link from Capt Marvel. Here’s a few more from the digital age.76543210
Just seen that Titan truck today in IGA parking lot at Hinton Ab.
Came across this thread & would like to throw my two pennys worth. Mine is a 2003 KW100E. I am going to put a SS tank on her for next winter & pull a 40’ SS tank trailer on winter roads. 
saxonhorse:
6Came across this thread & would like to throw my two pennys worth. Mine is a 2003 KW100E. I am going to put a SS tank on her for next winter & pull a 40’ SS tank trailer on winter roads.
That’s a great drawbar outfit especially with regs that allow a 40 foot trailer.
did someone mention fuel saving ?
perhaps we should tell them about close coupling im told that helps
good god almighty
I thought I’d put up some reading material about how I got started.
FIRST GERMAN TRIP.
Although newspapers and job centres are good ways to find lorry-driving jobs, I have always found the best way to get work is to drive round the haulage yards and knock on doors. If you look like a professional driver, they tend to remember you, even if they haven’t got anything for you at the time. This method paid off, when I met a guy who I had worked with several years before. He was now working in the office as a transport manager for another company. We had been talking for ages when Ian Berwick came in to discuss the purchase of a company vehicle. I knew Ian from when we had both competed in motorcycle trials in the late ’70s.
“You was on for Bartrums last time I saw you. What are you up to these days?” asked Ian, in his usual friendly manner.
“Not a lot. I’ve been working over in France. Just got back and I’m going round looking for work,” I replied.
“I didn’t know you had Continental experience. I’m looking for a driver to do weekly Germans for me — are you interested?” inquired Ian.
“Yeah. I’m probably just the man you’re looking for,” I said, omitting to say that my international driving had been done on a tractorin the vineyards of France.
“Well, I’m supposed to be taking one out on Sunday afternoon. If you could do it, that would let me catch up on all the ■■■■ paperwork. What do you say?”
“Sure. No worries,” I said casually.
“Okay then. Meet me in the Routemaster lorry park. Midday Sunday and you can take it from there,” said Ian, with the air of a man who had just got lucky.
I prepared for my maiden voyage the best I could. I bought the best road atlas of Europe that I could find; food and clothes for a week were assembled, with my tools, sleeping bag and other bits and pieces. Ian volunteered to look after the van while I was away. I promised to look after his lorry. The boat left Felixstowe at 4.00 o’clock and I had just enough time to get the cab organised before my departure. What I wasn’t prepared for was the five hour crossing in rough seas — I was violently seasick several times. All my time was spent either in the toilet or on my bunk. This was time I had planned to utilise by talking to other drivers about Customs’ procedures and which was the best route to take. Ideally, I hoped somebody was going my way and that I could tag along. Almost every other driver had the same travel sickness problem as me. Anyone not in their cabin seemed to be on their way to the toilet and definitely on receptive to the approaches of an ignorant ‘first-timer’. When I drove off the ferry at Zeebrugge, on a windy Belgian evening, I felt terrible and had no idea what to do. At the end of a long row of trucks, I parked on the quayside and went straight to bed.
When morning came, I felt a lot better. I muddled my way through the Customs’ paperwork, while concentrating hard on what was done to what and by whom. Next time, I did not want to look such an idiot. The driving on the wrong side of the road had never been a problem for me, so the three and a half hours it took to cross Belgium on the motorways came as a welcome relief before I came to the German border at Aachen and had to tackle the whole Customs’ paperwork nightmare again. A Dutch driver who, like most of his countrymen, spoke fluent English and German, helped me through the maze of forms, permits, tank scheins and carnets. It was then that I realised the best way to tackle the situation was to tell someone that it was my first time and to ask them to show me what to do. Conning Ian Berwick into thinking I knew what I was doing was alright, as it got me the job that I had always dreamed about, but now I was only fooling myself. After Aachen, I always adopted the “Can you help me, please?” technique, but never forgot my first time at a fresh border and tried to help other drivers, even if they never asked.
This first trailer load of exports had three consignments: one for delivery in Nuremberg and two for Munich. The biggest foreseeable problem seemed to be in finding the location of the delivery addresses. So I decided to invest in street maps of the two cities, which I was able to buy from an autobahn service area. With the help of the maps I had made all three deliveries by Tuesday afternoon and had telephoned Ian in England to find out the re-load address for the goods to take back. A load of fridge-freezers was waiting for me at Bingen. So I drove over on the Tuesday evening, in order to be at the factory for first thing Wednesday morning. Three men with sack barrows filled up the trailer in less than half an hour so, with a more confident approach to border crossing, I was back at Zeebrugge to catch the night’s boat to Felixstowe. The ferry docked first thing in the morning and after clearing Customs, the agent telephoned the delivery warehouse at Watford to arrange for unloading that afternoon. When I called Ian that night, he seemed very impressed with the way things had gone.
“You done that quicker than I could have done it,” remarked Ivan.
“Yeah, not bad trip. No problems really,” I lied.
Only “White Lies” Chris, a good read You should write a book 
Will drop The New Zealand one off when I get to finish it…
FIRST ITALY TRIP FOR FRED ARCHER.
The French truckers had been staging one of their regular blockades and Fred Archer had a lorry caught up in it. The driver had sat with it for ten days at Cluses, near the Italian border. The load was for Milan, but the driver had got so fed up that he caught a train back to England and jacked in the job. The blockade was lifted the same weekend that the driver returned the lorry keys to Ipswich. Roger Tripp and I were asked to take the company Volkswagen Golf over to France and find the lorry. When we found the vehicle, I was to then take over and run through to Italy, while Roger came back in the car. We left Ipswich at midday on Saturday, to go via Dover-Calais. Hammering the Gold non-stop along the autoroutes, we found the Mercedes lorry at lunchtime on Sunday.
The truck and trailer were still all in one piece and started easily, but because of the French weekend truck curfew, I could not drive until 10.00 o’clock in the evening. As I had been driving all night, I climbed on the bunk to have a well-earned sleep. The work was for the same company that Ian Berwick was sub-contracting for the year before, so when I got to Italy, I knew the Customs agent and the re-load address. By Tuesday evening, I was coming back through the Mont Blanc tunnel, which impressed Fred so much that he sent me straight back to Italy. He sent an unaccompanied trailer over to Zeebrugge and gave instructions that I was to leave my trailer on the Belgium quay, in order to take the other back to Milan. This was a common practice that saved on ferry costs, but left me with a shortage of running money.
I spent the weekend at Carisio, a small Italian town on the autostrada, mid-way between Turin and Milan. There was a restaurant with a huge lorry park, a few hundred metres from the motorway exit. It was a popular place with British drivers and anyone week-ending in the north of Italy always knew they could find a drinking partner at Carisio. Monday morning saw me at the Milan Customs’ clearance compound, ready to delivery two consignments in the afternoon. Tuesday was taken up by collecting two pick-ups, before clearing Customs, late in the evening. The drive up to Mont Blanc tunnel and most of the journey across France accounted for Wednesday. The rest of France, plus the ferry-crossing, brought me back to Ipswich late on Thursday evening.
“I want your passport, boy. I’m sending it up to London for a Polish visa,” said Fred, on Friday morning.
FIRST TRIP TO POLAND.
First thing Wednesday morning, I was at an old RAF airfield, near Royston in Hertfordshire. The aeroplanes had long gone but the buildings were still used by the Ministry of Defence for storage. The people who were paying for the lorry to go to Poland was a Charity called “Medical Aid for Poland”, who raised money to buy hospital equipment, which it then shipped out to the Communist state. Fred Archer had done some work for them before and, this time, the charity had purchased a load of nurses’ uniforms from Government Surplus. One of the security guards at the store reckoned the stuff was from the Second World War, and had been kept at Royston for longer than he had worked there. The thousands of brown paper parcels containing the uniforms were all neatly ■■■■■■■ with string, but the two car loads of charity workers got stuck into loading and passed the parcels into the trailer, loading it to the roof, from front to back. All the helpers were Polish or sons of Poles who lived in Britain. I wondered which one was going to be my ■■■■■■. It came as a shock when Mr Bronsky, the top man, told me my ■■■■■■ wasn’t at Royston, but that she would meet me at Dover.
When the trailer was loaded, I was given instructions that the vehicle was booked on that evening’s Dover to Ostend ferry. The arrangements gave me plenty of time, so I took it easy, plodding down to the Channel port. On the A2 dual carriageway, a silver Cortina came alongside, flashing its headlights and blowing its hooter. The passenger was gesticulating that I should pull over. Thinking that there was something wrong with the trailer, I pulled in at the first opportunity, which happened to be a transport café. The young guy from the Cortina came running over to ask if I was going to Poland. It then clicked that my ■■■■■■ had seen the Archer lorry and thought it would save time if they could get me to stop.
My ■■■■■■ was the passenger of the car, not at all what I had been expecting. Irena was well over 60 years old. Over a cup of tea, I found out the lady had been born in Poland, but had lived in Britain since the end of the Second World War. The car driver was her grandson. This was Irena’s fourth trip as an ■■■■■■ for “Medical Aid for Poland” and she seemed quite at ease with the prospect of sleeping in a lorry cab. My ■■■■■■ was keen to spend Saturday and Sunday with old friends in Warsaw, so she was pleased to hear I wasn’t in any particular hurry to complete the trip — visiting friends was the only perk from the unpaid ■■■■■■’s job.
It was an uneventful Channel crossing, which disembarked at just after midnight. I parked on the quay at Ostend for the night. As I had slept in my cabin during the voyage, I was up early and across Belgium before dawn. Transiting Holland did not take long either, as we made our way east, entering Germany at the border town of Venlo. The Mercedes truck made good time across the flat terrain. The nurses’ uniforms did not weigh much, which suited the 260 horsepower v-eight engine. It looked as if we would just have enough driving time to cross into East Germany on the first full day. Even with a complete vehicle search at the East-West German border, my plan looked to be on schedule; but, when I came to stop for the night, Irena was most upset.
“You cannot stop here, not in Germany. I hate the Germans. You must continue to Poland. I will not sleep a night in Germany, especially East Germany,” exclaimed Irena.
“But I have driven my permitted hours. We have to stop for nine hours,” I explained, taken aback by the strength of the lady’s protest.
“You do not understand. I was in Auschwitz concentration camp during the war. I cannot stay in Germany longer than necessary,” continued Irena, in the same distraught tone.
“Okay. We’ll have a coffee and then push on to the Polish border,” I replied.
“Thank you,” sighed Irena.
You have a have a pretty good excuse to break the tachograph laws. The situation would take a lot of explaining, if I was caught; but this was good enough for me. The last thing I wanted, was to argue with Irena and after what she had said, going against her wishes was unthinkable. During the evening, as we drove on towards Poland, Irena told me about Auschwitz and how she went there as a Jewish teenager, from Warsaw. The only reason Irena had survived was because she spoke German and was used as a translator. The ■■■■■■ trips on behalf of the “Medical Aid for Poland” charity were the first time since the war that Irena had been to Germany, or spoken German. The way Irena had been able to rise above the hatred and do something positive for the people of her homeland was remarkable. That night, I felt humble to be in the company of someone who had been through so much and was still willing to do her bit for a country she had left 40 years ago.
Fortunately, East Germany was not a wide country and was crossed in a few hours. Although the state of the road from Berlin, eastwards, to Frankfurt am der Oder was terrible, the concrete slabs that made up the dual carriageway all seemed to have subsided at one end, which gave the lorry a back-jarring jolt every two lengths that it travelled. At the Polish border, the East German formalities were quick and easy, as it seemed the authorities did not expect anyone would be trying to escape into Poland. However, it was a different story two hundred years up the road, on the Polish side. Irena took charge of things so, as she went off with the paperwork, I thought I would catch up on some sleep. But I was soon woken up and told to drive into a Customs’ examination shed. It seemed that a charity truck from Holland had been caught trying to smuggle in a printing press and, since then, every aid shipment was completely unloaded for a thorough check. It looked like a squad of young Polish soldiers had been especially roused for the job. They did not look very happy. Irena told me to get some rest, while she kept an eye on things to make sure none of the nurses’ uniform went missing.
I slept well, as I was tired enough not to notice the rocking of the trailer, but I woke to find Irena was still supervising the Polish army, as they tried to get all the packages back on the vehicle. Why they needed more space than the loaders at Royston, I do not know. When the boy soldiers had finished, the canvas canopy of the trailer looked like a sack of spuds. We got underway as soon as possible after the examination. The sun was coming up, as Irena reclined on the passenger seat, to get some well-earned rest. The lady slept all morning, as I drove eastwards, on the poorly surfaced, single carriageway. There was no need for maps, as Warsaw was sign posted all the way from the frontier. Traffic was light, tractors and trailers shared the road with local Polish trucks. There was the occasional west-bound, Russian registered TIR outfit, but not many cars. Most Polish cars seemed to be 124 Fiat look-a-likes that spent most of their life parked beside blocks of flats in drab Polish towns. Progress was steady, rather than spectacular, while I soon learned to slow down to a walking pace when negotiating level crossings. They were anything but level, with sections of wooden sleepers between the tracks often missing. With just one stop for lunch, it was still after dark when we reached the outskirts of Warsaw. I had not expected it to take so long; but on taking a second look at the map of Poland in my European road atlas, I realised, not only was Warsaw three-quarters of the way across the country, but the Polish map was drawn to a smaller scale than that of Germany and the rest of Western Europe
Irena then produced a street map of Warsaw from her handbag and, while telling me the story of how she had acquired this rare item, she showed me our final destination. It was a Catholic church, on the banks of the river, opposite the zoo, upstream from the third road bridge. I found it with no trouble. The church was at the centre of a complex that included a convent, a school and a meeting hall. There was just enough room to reverse into the playground beside the school. The unloading of the trailer had been arranged for the Saturday morning so, while Irena went off to stay with her friends, I was given room in the convent. It was smartly furnished with a bed, wardrobe and desk. A decorative star-shaped light-fitting illuminated the room. There were places for five bulbs, only one of the three worked. That summed up Poland perfectly.
An enthusiastic crew of helpers turned up in the morning to unload the uniforms. Great fun was had by all, throwing the brown paper parcels off the trailer and into the church hall, through an open window. I did not know Poland had so many talented Rugby players. In the afternoon, I wandered around the city. It was overcast and cold: the weather was the same. Warsaw seemed to have little to offer, or was I in the wrong part of town? Dressed in an old bomber jacket and jeans, I thought I would blend in with the crowd, but so many people stopped me, to ask if I wanted to exchange any dollars for zlotys, I took off my jacket to check if someone had chalked USA on the back.
My meals at the convent were brought to my room by the nuns - big portions of meat and vegetables that I knew they would not be having themselves. It was a difficult situation. I wanted to tell them I did not want special treatment, that they should not give all their rations to me, but I did not want to seem ungrateful or waste anything. I tried to make the nuns feel happy, by eating everything up and thanking them profusely. The fact was, I had three weeks’ worth of food in the lorry and had not been expecting a bed, let alone full board.
When I was washing the lorry on the Sunday morning, Irena came to see me, in order to discuss our departure time. She talked me into staying the Sunday night so she could see more of her friends. The couple drove Irena round to the church in their beat-up old Polish Fiat. The old man had fought with the RAF during the war and could have stayed on to live in Britain, but had chosen to return to his native Poland. He was a nice bloke, who spoke perfect English. He could have certainly done better for himself than a rusty Lada clone if he had been like Irena and so many other Poles who settled in Britain after 1945. My three friends were pleased to hear that I did not intend to move out until Monday morning. I figured that I could drive to the East German border by Monday night and cross, first thing Tuesday, load in West Germany in the afternoon and the get across, into Holland, by the end of the day. This plan, I hoped, would keep Irena happy: in and out of both East and West German in one day. It was not a plan of which Fred Archer would have approved, as it did not make for good economic transport operations, but sitting about on a Sunday was the least I could do for someone like Irena. As it was, the plan worked perfectly, even with a hiccup of a broken fuel pipe. German efficiency in repairing the engine and in loading the trailer at Hanover meant that we were able to catch the midnight fright ferry from Zeebrugge to Dover.
When I got back to Ipswich, after tipping in Leicester, Fred asked why I had taken so long. I told him about the Dutch printing press and the full turnout at the border, which seemed to satisfy his curiosity.
FIRST TRIP TO ROMANIA. 1983.
Romania was my next destination, with 54 drums of insecticide used for spraying fruit trees. Fred Archer had another load of the same drums going to another town nearby, so he instructed the driver to show me the way. I met up with Jock ■■■■■■■■ on the quay at Felixstowe, as we waited to drive onto the Sunday afternoon ferry to Zeebrugge. Jock was in his late 40s, with about ten years; experience of Middle-Eastern and Commie-bloc work. He knew just about all there was to know about the job and had worked for nearly every East Anglian company doing continental haulage. However, Jock made it clear that it was my responsibility to keep up with him. If I was at the borders with him, then he would show me what to do — otherwise I was on my own.
I got little encouragement from Jock’s attitude, as he was driving a brand new Scania 112 and I was still with an old Mercedes. It turned out that keeping up with Jock was not a problem as he was not in a hurry and his main priority was to make sure he found somewhere to have a drink in the evening. Jock knew every truck stop on the route; he even stopped to buy supplies at a village shop in Bavaria. The exceptional thing about it was that it was 10.00 o’clock at night and the shop was well and truly closed. The old lady seemed to know Jock well. She opened up and put all the lights on; Jock encouraged me to buy something, saying that I never knew when I might want to shop there again.
The next morning, when we crossed into Czechoslovakia, I found out about Jock’s other great passion, besides drink: women. It seemed that Jock’s ideal trip was to get drunk every night and have a woman in each country, on the way through. Jock knew every watering hole in every country, but I do not think Fred wanted him to stop at them all, when he asked the Scotsman to show me the way. We went from the Motorest at Pilzen, to the Motel Rokycany, and then to the services at Brno. At each place Jock showed me how to change Deutsche Marks on the black market, how to buy diesel fuel for Marks and where to find the best looking women.
After Prague, the motorway to Bratislava made our journey easier and we were soon in Hungary. Once again, we stopped at the places traditionally frequented by British drivers. These included the Hotel Wein in Budapest and the Windmill, a restaurant in the countryside, south of the capital. The old Mill had been converted into a smart eatery: it was not only popular for its good food, but also for the shower block built in the truck park. Jock thought there was a better class of girl at the Windmill, too. He recommended Erica, who he reckoned was every British driver’s favourite Commie-block ■■■■■. Sadly, she was having a night off when we were there.
First thing next morning we crossed into Romania, where Jock certainly knew all about the paperwork. It took half a day, but Jock managed to clear Customs, get the TIR carnets stamped and buy our visas with 200 Marlboro, a jar of Nescafe and some Wrigley’s chewing gum - it was the normal procedure when delivering in Romania, which allowed us to go straight to our destinations without dealing with further bureaucracy.
It was also Jock’s birthday, and to celebrate it, he wanted a woman. When we left the border, it soon became clear how he was going to get one: Jock stopped at every bus stop, in every town and village, to ask any waiting females if they wanted a ride. As he did not seem to be having much luck, I soon got fed up pulling up behind him every few minutes. Eventually, I pulled round him and made steady progress on my own. But on leaving the next town, there was a girl hitchhiker. This was the very thing Jock was looking for, so I stopped to pick her up. She was tall and slim with long black hair to go with her olive-brown complexion. If it were not for her brown teeth, you would have said she was a ‘ten’. The teenage Romanian was bubbly and full of life. As we went along, she tried on my sunglasses and went through my cassette collection, pleading with me to let her keep one of my Dire Straits’ tapes.
I drove on for a few miles, before stopping in a picnic area for coffee and to wait for Jock. Minutes later, he swung into the car park and pulled up with his driver’s door next to mine.
“Where the hell did you get her from?” raged Jock, as he peered across at my passenger.
“Two towns back. Had any luck?” I asked, although I could see he was alone.
“No, I haven’t. You jammy git,” replied Jock.
“She’s yours then — my birthday present to you. Take her,” I offered.
“No. No, you found her. You can have her,” shouted Jock, as he slammed the Scania into gear and roared out onto the road, showering everywhere with gravel.
We made love on the bottom bunk of the Mercedes, as the afternoon sunshine shone warmly through the gaps in the hurriedly drawn curtains. I soon saw what a perfect body my passenger had, once she had taken off the shapeless nylon tracksuit that all Romanians seemed to wear. My good looking lover was also good between the sheets, where she took control in an unexpected performance that belied her youthful appearance. Afterwards, she told me her name was Paula and she gave me her address in Arad, telling me in sign language to call on my way back… I dropped Paula off in the next town, but not before she climbed across the cab for one last kiss.
“Marks, you give me marks?” asked Paula, as she ran her hands across my pockets, feeling for my wallet.
“Ten out of ten, very good,” I could not resist saying, but Paula did not understand why I was laughing — although she was well pleased with the ten Mark note that I gave her.
By this time, the daylight was fading; also, I had no idea where Jock planned to stop for the night. It was not that I needed his expertise anymore, I just wanted to be sociable. Jock had warned me of the dangers of night driving in Romania, with the common hazard of unlit horse and carts, so I took it slowly, driving defensively. I avoided the horses with their dozing drivers, while keeping half an eye out for Jock’s Scania. I found him — parked in a big lay-by on the outskirts of Carensebes. Jock had not found a woman to share his birthday celebrations, so he had drowned his sorrows by drinking his bottle of duty free Johnnie Walker. When I arrived, he was asleep at the wheel, with the whisky bottle lying smashed beside the cab.
At 5.00 o’clock the next morning, incredibly, Jock was banging on my cab door, raring to go. We motored down to Craiova, where Jock stopped outside my delivery address, where he had unloaded on a previous trip. My tutor gave me some final instructions on how to find out about a return load, before setting off for the town of Alexandria and a similar government store to the one in Craiova. The trailer was unloaded and I had the paperwork signed by midday.
The only way to telephone out of Rumania is by using the services of the international tourist hotels. These are very helpful places with plenty of English-speaking staff, but they are expensive. You not only pay for out-going telephone calls, but also have to pay to receive a call. Two calls of less than two minutes each cost over £20, but the quick chats with Fred in England did give me my re-load address. A load of knitwear for London, from a Romanian textile factory in Piatra Nment and a similar factory in Suceava: two towns in the north of Romania — a good day’s worth of driving from Craiova.
Romania is a vast country, with no motorway system. The single carriageway roads were usually poorly surfaced, although relatively traffic free. The speed limit for TIR lorries was 50 kilometres per hour or 30 mph, which left the Mercedes pottering along with four unused high gears in the 12 speed gearbox. For fuel economy reasons, I wanted to run in to gear. This inevitably brought me trouble with the police, who pulled up foreign lorries as a matter of routine. The standard payment for speeding was 20 king-sized cigarettes; the favoured brand in Romania, for some unknown reason, was Kent — practically unheard of elsewhere. Marlboro would get you out of any trouble anywhere else in Eastern Europe, but it was Kent in Romania. I was thankful for Jock’s recommendation to buy 400 at the border duty free shop. Hardly a day went by without a speeding fine.
At Piatra Nment, I arrived, 60 cigarettes lighter, but could not find the textile factory anywhere. A helpful receptionist at the tourist hotel telephoned the head office in Bucharest, to find out the name of the factory for me. The girl wanted me to take a room as well, but I told her I could not afford one, after paying the exorbitant cost of the telephone call. With her directions, I found the factory with ease, but was told that my goods were not ready for loading. I was advised to come back in two days. I went to a parking area on the shore of a lake that I had noticed when driving into town. It was a quiet place to park, so I rested all the next day, but was surprised when the manager of the knitwear factory turned up in the evening and told me my load was ready to load first thing in the morning. I had not told anyone where I was going to park, plus, you could not see the lorry from the road: but somehow, they knew where I was.
The workers hand-balled the cartons of knitwear onto the trailer in the morning and, armed with a hand-drawn map of where to find the Suceava factory, I headed north. This time, the exports were ready. I was loaded, with the paperwork done, by early afternoon. Suceava is in the province of Moldova and, on looking at the map of Romania, my best route back to Hungary seemed to be due west — through Transylvania. What seemed to be a major transit route on the map, turned out to be a poorly surfaced road — the equivalent of a British ‘B’ road. It was also mountainous country and, although it was very picturesque, it was slow-going for the Mercedes, even with a comparatively light load. The Romanian sign posting also left a lot to be desired, with several occasions when it was left to my sense of direction.
I was well into the second day of a long, hard slog across Romania, when I reached the border, at Oradea. This was my first border crossing in Eastern Europe without the assistance of Jock ■■■■■■■■■ My old tactic of watching what everyone else was doing did not have any relevance this time — I was the only person wishing to cross at this remote frontier outpost. However, I need not have worried; the atmosphere at Oradea was completely different from the tension and frantic activity at the main crossing point at Nadlac. Everyone was friendly, even pleased to see me — especially when I donated a jar of Nescafe to the Customs’ staff canteen. The lady in the Romtrans bureau wanted to practice her English, so it took ages to type out the TIR carnet, but it was all very relaxed and pleasant.
My good day was complete when I got a really good deal on a tank-full of black market diesel fuel. I bought enough to get me all the way back to England, but I had to risk getting caught with too much fuel when I crossed into West Germany. There was a 200 litre limit on imported fuel -—any more than that and you had to pay duty. At the German border, the officials seemed more interested in asking me about any Czech army movements I may have seen, rather than checking my fuel tank, so I got away with it. Halfway through Germany, I saw Jock ■■■■■■■■ going the other way, with another load of fruit tree spray. When I got back to Ipswich, I found that all Romanian loads had gone, but there were two loads of Perkins diesel engines waiting to go to Turkey.
FIRST TRIP TO TURKEY, 1983. [Part 1 ]
Rob Bulmer was in the office when I went to collect my expenses for the Romanian trip.
“Do you two want to do these Turkish loads?” asked Fred, without giving us time to reply, he added, “I know neither of you have done Turkey before, but it doesn’t matter because you won’t be running together anyway.”
Rob and I were still trying to work out the logic of the statement when Fred continued:
“I’ve got one set of permits for Czech-Hungary and one set for Austria-Yugo. Who wants what?” asked Fred, while handing out the papers before getting an answer.
My set of permits was for Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia and Turkey: permits were not needed for Belgium or Bulgaria. I left my passport to be couriered up to London for a Bulgarian visa, while Rob needed visas for Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria.
We left Felixstowe on the Wednesday afternoon. Rob and I ran together as far a Nurnburg on the Thursday night. On Friday morning we split up, as Rob headed east for the Czech border, while I continued south-eastwards, passing Munich and following signposts for Salzburg in Austria. It was the first time I had crossed into Austria and Rob Bulmer had warned me about the complicated road tax system inflicted on foreign trucks. He recommended that I find an agent at the border and pay him to do all the paperwork. Rob had done regular Austrian work before coming to drive for Fred Archer. He reckoned it took him at least half a dozen trips to get the hang of the forms.
On my way over to the agent’s office block, I was approached by another British driver who was also driving his maiden voyage to the Middle East. His name was Chris Wood and he was delighted to see me, as he thought I could help him with his papers. Chris was disappointed to find that it was my first time, too, but we agreed to tackle it together. It took us a long time to get through, but I am sure two heads were better than one, and it could have taken a long longer. The Austrian Customs were a nightmare, even with our forms filled in by the agent. There were rows of frosted glass sliding windows where you had to push your papers under the glass. If it was the wrong papers to the wrong window, then they were rejected without explanation. All the sings were written in German: we only conquered the system by using the process of elimination. It got to the stage when both of us could only see the funny side of the situation. At the end of our ordeal, the Austrian Customs officials must have wondered just what sort of people British lorry drivers were — Chris and I went from window to window, laughing helplessly.
We left the crossing point together and drove through Austria, reaching the border with Yugoslavia just after nightfall. Neither Chris no I could face the prospect of another disastrous Customs encounter on the same day, so we decided to leave it until the morning. On Saturday, however, our decision turned out to be the wrong one, as the border was closed for the weekend. We were stuck until midnight Sunday, but every cloud has a silver lining and two more British trucks had arrived during the night. It seemed that the drivers knew they would not be going anywhere for a couple of days as neither occupant surfaced from his bunk before midday. When they did get up, we all had lunch together in the restaurant, overlooking the crossing. The late arrivals introduced themselves as John Bruce, who drove for Astrans, and Hamish Jenkins, working for Simons. John was en route for Oman, while Hamish was just going to Istanbul — the same as Chris Wood and myself. We told John and Hamish that we were first-timers and John said he would show us the way, as long as we kept up. John was particular who he ran with, but said he owed it to the driver who had taken him under his wing when he was on his first trip. The idea was that we should help anybody in a similar situation to us in the future.
Hamish was an old friend of John’s, who went back a long way; his casual attitude contrasted greatly with John’s seriousness. I thought Chris and I were fortunate to get the chance to run with two such experienced drivers who would virtually guarantee our safe arrival in Istanbul — it certainly eased my mind. Hamish had a saying, a motto that applied to about 50% of British drivers going the Middle East work — it was: “The job’s fued: let’s go on the ps”. He would say this line every time he raised his hand to order four more beers, which the waiter duly brought over to our table. The four of us spent the whole of Saturday drinking in the restaurant, as we looked down on the comings and goings at the border. After a long lie-in on Sunday, we spent the rest of the day doing exactly the same as Saturday, at exactly the same table.
One of the differences between Middle East drivers and drivers to other European countries was that Middle East drivers never made early starts. Sometimes, possibly because of the drinking during the previous night, but mainly because they knew that they were not going to reach their destination that day however early they started. On the Monday, we all had a leisurely breakfast, before John shepherded Chris and me through the maze of Austrian and Yugo Customs’ procedures. This involved paying even more road tax to use Yugoslavian roads, even though we would have to pay motorway tolls en route.
The road through Yugoslavia from Maribor in the north, to the Bulgarian border in the east was called “Death Road” and for a very good reason: it was a single carriageway for much of its length and was used by both farm traffic and vehicles wanting to cross continents, which led to many fatal accidents. The cause of which was nearly always due to the vast difference in vehicles’ speeds that necessitated frequent overtaking. The deaths in the crashes were marked by roadside shrines of flowers and crosses. I had lost count of how many we had passed by the time we reached Belgrade. With the right-hand drive Mercedes, it was difficult to overtake. Hamish was up ahead, where he tried to help by signalling to me about the on-coming traffic, but with only 260 horsepower, it was never easy. Every time I overtook one of the slow, over-loaded local trucks, it was a close shave. The most common on-coming danger was the endless stream of old German-registered Mercedes cars, full of Turkish families making their way back to Germany, after visiting relatives in their homeland.
John and Hamish wanted to stop for the night at the National Hotel on the northern outskirts of Belgrade, but it was packed out with trucks of every nation when we arrived in the late evening. John managed to have a chat with a couple of homeward-bound British drivers before we moved on to park for the night at a service station, south of the capital. The news that it was taking three days to queue up to cross the border from Bulgaria into Turkey prompted John and Hamish to change our route so we avoided the trouble-spot. We carried on driving east, before turning south, in order to go through Greece. You did not need a permit to transit Greece, but John figured we might have problems if we did not make it to the border in one day. To stop overnight in southern Yugoslavia was asking for trouble from the notorious gangs of gypsies who preyed on unwary foreigners. Hamish illustrated John’s warning with a couple of lurid tales of misadventure. He had stories to tell on most aspects of Middle East driving, but the one about the gypsy girl sitting on the driver’s face, while her sister searched the cab for his wallet, was most disturbing. It was a good job for me that they did not know that trick in Romania.
Chris Wood and myself had no qualms about the change of plan, as we continued to tag along behind the other two. We made it into the Greek truck-stop at Evzoni just after midnight. There had been a problem about paying extra road tax, due to our re-routing, but John Bruce knew how to handle it and made it look simple. I just hoped I could remember all this avalanche of information, after John had taken so much time and trouble in explaining everything. Hamish was happy to be in Greece, so he brought out another of his sayings to celebrate the successful traversing of Yugoslavia: “Good job well done, let’s go on the p**s.” He was still drinking steadily when I went to bed at 3.30.
The next day’s run was planned by Hamish over breakfast at Evzoni. Our destination was Kavala, via Thessalonika: Hamish would lead the way, as only he knew the short-cut through Thessalonika. John added a warning about the steep hill down into Kavala and off we went. All was well, until Hamish did a sharp left turn across the traffic, as we can into Thessalonika. I was last of the four and by the time I did my turn into the narrow road between two blocks of flats, the dust kicked up by the other three was worse than any fog. I blindly followed along on what turned into a rough track with raised manhole covers and half-made kerbs. At the top of the track, where the housing finished, I was confronted by Hamish’s DAF coming towards me, with a line of laundry draped over the front of the trailer. Hamish made hand motions, indicating that I should turn round in the field behind him, before we all made our way back down to the main road. We had to endure a stream of verbal abuse from dozens of irate Greek housewives, who had just seen a morning’s washing ruined by four inconsiderate Britons. It turned out that we wanted the next left, just 100 yards further down the road.
Even with the detour, we still made it to Kavala by early afternoon. It was a medium sized port, with ferries and fishing vessels, but the important thing about Kavala, after you had negotiated the long, twisting descent down to sea level, was the lorry park on the beach. A long, narrow parking area, shaded by trees and serviced by cheap, friendly restaurants, serving ice cold beer. What more could a driver wish for? It was said that many weary souls on their way back from the further eastern destinations, spent as long as a week at Kavala, re-charging their batteries, before returning to the UK. We were only going to spend one night on the beach, so Hamish wasted no time in getting his folding chair, in order to sit on the sand with a cold bottle of Lowenbrau in his hand.
John warned Chris and me to take it easy on the beer as the next day was one of the few days on which an early start would be beneficial. The Turkish Customs at the border only made two clearances each day: one at midday and one at midnight. You had to get into the Turkish Customs’ compound before 9.00 o’clock in the morning to have any chance of leaving before noon. The Ipsala crossing was not a busy frontier, as Greece and Turkey were not the best of friends, having fallen out over Cyprus. The Bulgarians and the Turks were not very friendly towards each other either, but due to necessity they crossed the border into each other’s country. No Greeks or Turks crossed the border at Ipsala — it was only used by foreigners to both countries.
We all used the services of the Customs’ agent called Youngturk, who handled all the paperwork. The four of us retired to the restaurant for a cup of chi, the sweet tea, drunk without milk. The only other travellers crossing into Turkey that morning were Dutch and German tourists in camper vans: three going east and two vans returning west. The outer near-side tyre of the drive axle had picked up a bolt on the early morning run to the border and had slowly deflated. It would have saved time to change the wheel while we waited for the Customs’ all clear, but John reckoned that messing about under the noses of the border officials might make them unnecessarily suspicious, so we decided to leave it until we got up the road. The first thing I did on Turkish soil was to change a wheel, although Chris Wood did most of the work, while swearing at Hamish, who did absolutely nothing.
Hamish was more interested in the contents of a Dutch registered coach that was sharing our lay-by. The passengers were all young Australians and New Zealanders, mostly girls, who were doing the European Grand Tour, so popular with antipodean twenty-somethings. The coach party had stopped for lunch and sat eating cheese salad sandwiches on the grassy slopes above the road. Hamish referred to the vehicle as a ‘■■■■-bus’, an unflattering term used by all Middle Eastern drivers, which did not accurately reflect the contents of the coach. It was more of a label given, because of the constant failure of the drivers to get anywhere with the girls.
We left the lay-by with instructions to look out for the long descent into Tekirdag and not to forget to stop at the police checkpoint at Silivri. It was not a steep hill down into Tekirdag, but it was long and twisted, down a narrow valley, so that you would not see the end; a low gear was needed to get you safely to the bottom. The road went straight through the town and it was easy to envisage runaway trucks careering down the hill, with their brakes on fire. After catching up the others at the police checkpoint, it was just an hour’s drive into the Londra Camp, situated on the western outskirts of Istanbul, near the airport. It was an old campsite, originally for camper vans and back-packers, but it had widened its entrance gates to accommodate lorries. The Londra was the Number One rendezvous point for everyone going across the Bosphorus.
Rob Bulmer had arrived the previous evening and was parked in the section of the lorry park that British trucks reserved for themselves. It was the shadiest corner, nearest the showers and the bar, but furthest away from the noisy road. Rob had been to see our agent in Istanbul that morning. He had told Rob that we were clearing Customs at Izmit. The agent left instructions with Rob that if I arrived during the day, I was to follow Rob to Izmit where, hopefully, we would be unloaded in the afternoon.
adr:
Hi Andrew,
As with this one you mean, you can clearly see the gap between cab & sleeper, with the exhaust side pipes running along the fuel-tanks!
Regards Chris
And also the cell phones/mobile phones too.