Saviem:
Evening all, great day harvesting, so quick that I can have an hour in the office before its “prepare for the morrow” time!!
[ZB], I will be brief, and as this is a Scania thread, (and Im not a Scania man)! Those Verheuls shown on your bottom photographs: The large V on the radiator grill was their “trademark”. (whichever way the operator/driver chose to show it)! The smaller badge is the “mark”, of Verheuls work, and the key “identifier”.
The lorries were Kromhout designs, either Rolls Royce, or licence built Gardner, 4, 5, or 6cylinder varient powered. Verheul having acquired Kromhout in1961. Verheul itself having been acquired by AEC, (ACV), in 1960. The emphasis was on bus production, (a Verheul speciality). Lorry production ended about 64, or 65 if I remember correctly! But Verheul provided cabs for other chassis, Mercedes, Scania, and domestic DAF, at the same time!
Verheuls origins were as a bodybuilder, and cab manufacturer, and according to my wifes cousin , Graf Van Daal, the “big LV” is a Verheul cab. Why does he know, well his father ran two such examples from their base at Aalst.
Hope this is of interest, Cheerio for now.
Yes. It is of the utmost interest, to this obsessive. This leads me to ponder my fascination with 1950s coachbuilt sleeper cabs, not least so I have an answer ready for the men in white coats, when they finally catch up with me. I reckon it is because the productivity of the designers in these little firms was such, that it gave the coachbuilders a decade’s head start over the vehicle manufacturers themselves, them with their offices full of brains. Using Scania Vabis as an example, it took them until 1968 to produce a cab comparable with (superior to?) the best of the coachbuilders’ work, and that with the assistance of a certain Mr. Sherrow. The first batches of LVs, other than the odd few one-offs, were delivered in 1958, according to my reading. The coachbuilders are therefore worthy of celebration.
My desire to identify the builder of “Big LV” forced me to interrogate, fruitlessly, Google with the incisiveness of those white-coated men, yet the answer has come from your own human acquaintance, Mr. van Daal. I then pondered the limitations of the internet, but concluded that its beauty is that it can be used to transmit, as well as receive, information- in this case, my request for information. Whatever, this electronic tool embodies more progress, than the motor industry has created since the LV was the latest thing. Without it, we would not be collating these minutiae of history at all, but an LV would still deliver the same load as a 21st century lorry.
Before this transmission becomes too ponderous, down to business! Your account of the Verheul “badge policy” almost confirms my wilder speculation upon it- that vehicles of predominantly Verheul manufacture would carry the large chrome “V”, while those vehicles constructed, in the main, by others (Scania Vabis, in this case) would carry the smaller “crown” as an acknowledgement of the coachbuilder’s part in the work. Is it the case that both LVs on the above collage are Verheul-cabbed? If so, why would they do two completely different ones? Could it be that the one on the right bears a Verheul “crown”, simply because the driver put it there? Please take this as rigour, not scepticism! If Mr. van Daal has photographs or other details, that would add well-toned flesh to the bones of the story.
That brings me to another tentacle of the monster- can anyone provide enlightenment on these two?
According to my fumbling translation of the text accompanying the photographs, one is in Belgium and the other may be in a sunnier place! Whatever, they both appear to be extant. The one on the towbar look as if it is on the way to be restored. Note the LB76 grille, LB76-like doors and wheelarches and, most intriguing of all, van Eck-style headlamp panels. Could this be the last throes of van Eck as a cab-builder, before the LB110 gobbled up the market?
I have some other leads, but they relate to other tentacles, and I ‘ve gone on long enough already. Another day… Once again, thanks for indulging my interest, and hopefully that of others.
