Carl Williams:
First of all thanks to Dean B for posting this photo on another threadThe van in photo is a Guy Otter. Wonder where the inside back wheels have gone? It must be an artists impression rather than a photo.
We had three of them 2 B Reg & 1 C Reg. I haven’t a photo of any of ours but keep hoping one turns up.
And although quite a few photos of the model before turn up from time to time that’s the first I’ve see of that cab, which is a smaller version of the Guy Invincible cab, I always thought Arthur Rathbone at Marsden’s used it for inspiration for the square twin headlamp cab he designed for the Bedford SBs in 1965.They Guys had 4 cylinder Gardiner Engines that achieved about 26 mpg and were very reliable but top speed was just 40 mph which was OK in 1964 but as motorways developed they were quickly outdated and the Guy cab suffered very bad cab rotting which was a shame because apart from that they were built like battleships
As there were so few built so few we were worried that spare parts might have been a problem, but we opened an account with Guy Motors at Wolverhampton & they had everything on the shelf. On two occasions I, myself nipped down to Wolverhampton a 360 mile round journey when we wanted something urgently & we hadn’t a van passing, but even then we had the parts back in our workshop days before any Leyland parts that always needed ordering VOR (Vehicle off the road).
AA little bit of the fate of these three Guy Otter luton vans we were operating in the seventies.
As I explained the were very slow with the four cylinder Gardner engines, but very reliable and extremely economical.
■■■■ Porter, one of our mechanics persuaded dad to recondition an engine in one of them. We expected it to be expensive, but were spellbound when we bought a factory reconditioned short motor from Painters Newcastle, main Gardner agents, which remarkably they had, off the shelf, and were astonished that the cost was much less than the Bedford equivalent. ■■■■ also did extensive welding to the cab structure which was suffering severe rot.
Following the success of this effort we continued to recondition the other two. They lasted another two years or so but the cabs were the let-down. The bodies which were built in the Coop’s own body shop were very well built and well matched to the robust Guy chassis, and were surprised that these would fit under Bedford TK chassis cabs perfectly, so we bought three Bedford TK chassis cabs from our neighbours on Green Lane Ind Est., Watson’s Carriers, and the bodies survived anther 5 years of life.
One important thing the Guy’s taught us was the reliability and economy of the wonderful Gardner engines, which led to us eventually starting to replace our tractor units with ERF’s with Gardner, and although we were using 32 ton gross tractors at about 22 ton gross in the majority of cases, the 180bhp engines gave good speed carrying the reduced loads and excellent reliability, with about 50per cent extra fuel consumption to Bedford Ford Leyland etc.