Right , another take on the ‘what went wrong’ thread from a drivers point of view rather than an operators & manufacturers . IMO of course , they were all [zb] [zb]!, interiors made of crappy cheap materials ( i mean the interiors of the last erf’s(plastic pigs! ) weren’t much different to an 80s montego! with the same build quality! , constant mesh gearboxes - oh c’mon most modern day drivers couldn’t handle em could they? , heavy clutches ( i had a sedak 301 ‘c’ reg & my left leg …well , oil leaks all the time?? , oh & compare a roadtrains steering wheel to a volvo or scanias ■■?, they were put together by typical british factory workers with no care or pride who thought " it’s only a [zb] lorry anyway !! " , & then the dealers , everytime it came back from a service/repairs, was normally bodged ,had missing dash screws etc & always dirty , could go on - but apart from nice sounding engines (14lt ■■■■■■■ IMO ) there weren’t much else goin for them , & really & it is NO SURPRISE theres none left , oh yeah ,& before carrypest mentions the TM , i remember we had a new ryder truck rental E290 ■■■■■■■ one- early 80s time -& out of 40 odd drivers , NO ONE wanted to drive the [zb] thing!! , preffering the old 88s & F10s instead , so i think quite alot of drivers share my opinion of the british rubbish ! Good riddance !!
mazz:
Right , another take on the ‘what went wrong’ thread from a drivers point of view rather than an operators & manufacturers . IMO of course , they were all [zb] [zb]!, interiors made of crappy cheap materials ( i mean the interiors of the last erf’s(plastic pigs! ) weren’t much different to an 80s montego! with the same build quality!not surprising though considering what most guvnors had been ordering and were happy with up to that point in time, constant mesh gearboxes - oh c’mon some drivers couldn’t handle em could they? , heavy clutches ( i had a sedak 301 ‘c’ reg & my left leg …well probably because SA thought if the customers have been happy without air assisted clutches so far why bother fitting them now , oh & compare a roadtrain to a volvo or scania ■■?, they were put together by typical british factory workers with no care or pride who thought zb em " it’s just another [zb] British customer and they’d be buying the DAF 2800 if they had any sense oh yeah ,& before carrypest mentions the TM , i remember we had a new ryder truck rental E290 ■■■■■■■ one (although to be fair it did have an air assisted clutch unlike that zb SA),because Ryder’s knew that their customers didn’t know or even care that it could have had something better like an 8V92 in it- early 80s time -& out of 40 odd drivers , NO ONE knew how to drive the [zb] thing anyway!! , preffering the old 88s & F10s instead because they had heavy slow shifting synchro boxes that they could handle unlike Fullers, so i think quite alot of drivers share my opinion of the british rubbish ! Good riddance !!
Fixed that. 
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My early driving carrear found me driving the last of the true British trucks. I drove a few leyland constructors and plenty of foden 4000 series and I still have a soft spot for a foden now.
For tipper work they were great simple light but still robust. The drive line was good no matter what engine but it was the cabs that just let them down they just felt a but kit car compared to a Volvo or scania.
The answer will differ as to when people started in transport as in the 60s foreign wagons were as common then as British ones are nowadays but there were some decent British wagons the Atkinson viewline was comfortable reasonably quite and nice to drive as well as being on top of the job. The Scammell Crusader was a good wagon and pulled better than nearly all the continental wagons of the time as I use to moan about swedes getting under my feet but things changed I would say it was in the late 70s when the continentals did pull ahead of the British manufacturers and they never looked back from then.
cheers Johnnie 
Not this old Chestnut again, how many times can the same subject be gone over, I’ll give you it from the Fitters viewpoint: British or Foreign, they all needed repairing, got rusty, broke down, were a nightmare to work on and every driver moaned about them doesn’t matter what name it had on the front. Makes me wonder when blokes went for a job and the gaffer pointed to the Brit motor in the corner if they said “No sorry mate, I only drive new Volvo’s or Scania’s keep your job” YEAH!
Frankydobo:
Not this old Chestnut again, how many times can the same subject be gone over, I’ll give you it from the Fitters viewpoint: British or Foreign, they all needed repairing, got rusty, broke down, were a nightmare to work on and every driver moaned about them doesn’t matter what name it had on the front. Makes me wonder when blokes went for a job and the gaffer pointed to the Brit motor in the corner if they said “No sorry mate, I only drive new Volvo’s or Scania’s keep your job” YEAH!
Not this driver Franky.I drove whatever was going,after four years of labouring on building sites lorry driving was like a day out.Getting paid for something you enjoyed great .
Cheers Dave.
Exactly Dave, I was just as glad to drive the old Seddon 200’s as I was the new 113 Scania’s cos it meant I was working. I would have gladly took a new British make the same as I would have grabbed a new Foreigner. I only ever got two new motors, a 17 tonne ERF and a 36 tonne Volvo, I hated both of them but for different reasons and nothing to do with them being home made or overseas (Volvo was built here anyway). I can’t understand this complete slagging off of British Lorries, many companies only ran British makes and never had any problems and their drivers were quite happy to drive them. Franky.
Franky you spot on there mate when we went for a job we knew what wagons the firm ran but I was more interested in my wages and how the job was run and the type of work you would be doing not which wagon you were driving. There is only one wagon which I did not like driving and it was foreign a 1626 Merc which far to high geared but balked at the mountains in Holland empty. I would say every other wagon I drove was capable of doing the job it was bought to do and the early continentals were not all synchro boxes most were constant mesh except the swedes which required a lot more effort than a constant mesh box. I was given a lot of advice over the years and some still sticks now nearly 50 years later and one piece was if you look after your wagon it will look after you and remember it as to get you back as well as there.
cheers Johnnie
I know the rot had already set in and the foreign invasion was making mincemeat out of the Brits, but I went from a T reg 111 Scania to a W reg 400 Sed Ak with a 290 ■■■■■■■■ the Sed Ak was twice the motor in everything but the badge on the front and the steering lock, the important things like ride and brakes were much better and that 290 would pull a house down, the cabs were the same size, but the Sed Ak was a bit more plasticky inside, funny thing is I earned the same amount driving both motors
newmercman:
I know the rot had already set in and the foreign invasion was making mincemeat out of the Brits, but I went from a T reg 111 Scania to a W reg 400 Sed Ak with a 290 ■■■■■■■■ the Sed Ak was twice the motor in everything but the badge on the front and the steering lock, the important things like ride and brakes were much better and that 290 would pull a house down, the cabs were the same size, but the Sed Ak was a bit more plasticky inside, funny thing is I earned the same amount driving both motors
I think some motors are going full circle with cheap plastic interiors reappearing,then again it never went away with Ivecos.I think there was a stigma that went with driving a big Swede and to be fair the quality was there compared with our efforts.Better build quality , and better quality of fixtures and fittings may have gone along way to rectifying the problem and maybe some of the merger/takeovers were ill advised in hindsight…i just hope some clown doesn`t reply to that with a TM 4400 comment
The quality of interior fittings and fixtures in the TM4400 was incomparable! 
Joking aside, these small details could have been improved at minimal exra cost, I think. The GB manufacturers in the 1970s and ‘80s were hampered by smaller build volumes c/w the Continentals, but this could have been an advantage in the upholstery department- a more “handbuilt” approach here can, with an extra tuppence ha’penny spent on materials, better the efforts of the injection moulder. These 1950s Mercedes’ with coachbuilt cabs are a good example:
Well Im retired now & have been for some years, I could & still can drive anything, but I drove what the gaffer gave me to drive I didnt allways like some of the motors, but so what I was getting paid no matter what I had to drive, its a job I chose to do, When I first started work at the Co-op on Newgate Street I delivered rations with a horse & rollie for 28 bob a week. & went on to become a long distance driver for Baxters on the Quayside & then in later years ran a familey haulage business. The young drivers of to-day have great motors to drive but I dont envy them at all, I may be old fashioned but I liked the good old days. Regards Larry
In the early 80’s my 2 favourite British lorries were a Foden with a CAT and an ERF B series with a ■■■■■■■■ They were far superior in terms of comfort and cab size as well as power. My alternatives at the time were Volvo F7, F10 and Scania 92. Later on I became a fan of a SA Strato. great cab and FAR superior to the DAF 95. It was a backward step from the 3300
I see those old 1950s Mercs are using the same ignition key/light switch as the ‘new generation’ ones did 25yrs later…if it ain’t broke
Evening all, young man early 60s, allowed to drive, “as my own” 4LK Gardner Foden 4wheeler, 18ft flat S20 cab with the speedometer in the middle of the steering wheel hub. I loved that lorry, she took me ,(in a sort of "Edwardian railway carriage"splendour throughout the UK, and even to Paris, and Marsailles. She only ever let me down once, in Paris, an injector broke. As I struggled at the urban roadside, all the cab content on the pavement, I can still remember the quietly courteous offer of help, from a blue coated figure, who transpired had watched my dilema from the premises of Transports G Borca et Fils, opposite my point of distress. I was to discover that their workshop had a real marble floor!! For there it was that my problem was rectified, at a most reasonable rate, a Gardner was familier to them, for they operated a substantial fleet of licence built, Gardner engined Bernards, truly the most handsome lorry ever to be created. But that Foden, i remember her with great fondness, she was a beautiful lorry. Cheerio for now.
A bit off the subject here but if the financial backing was there and all the main players from the `50s were still independant which company would you think could have survived and competed with the europeans of today .Obviously the finance was a big contributing factor to the demise of our commercial vehicle manufacturing , anyone named Carryfast need not reply
Leyland Motors clearly had the cash to do what it wanted in the 1950s. It developed and tooled the LAD cab and commenced the design of the Ergomatic cab while, at the same time, developing the 600/680 engines into world-class products (until the Power Plus version blotted its copybook slightly). If it had turned its head towards the buyers of those Mercs I posted above, it would have stayed in the race- and would still be in it today (barring other mishaps). That is the question that puzzles me- why did it just let the sales and design lead just slip away?
If this seems a bit off-topic, consider that Mercedes sold 2400 lorries like those above (alongside 11,000 of the earlier, small-cab bonneted model), between 1955 and 1957. The LAD cab was introduced in '58(?)- which would you rather spend the day in?
ramone:
A bit off the subject here but if the financial backing was there and all the main players from the `50s were still independant which company would you think could have survived and competed with the europeans of today .Obviously the finance was a big contributing factor to the demise of our commercial vehicle manufacturing , anyone named Carryfast need not reply
AEC and Scammel, they both had some clever chaps on their teams and were quite forward thinking, except for BL they would, I’m sure, be producing top quality lorries today 
I’d go with AEC and scammel true innovators. Don’t know how true it is but I read that lord stokes held a grudge against AEC as he was turned down for a job as a young man.
I’d add foden as they were another inovative firm with good engineers on board.