they were mark pointless bieng 2 pedel that one was a 6 speeder
Kate:
NEJ:
Just something on this one, as I was at the CCVM show (the last one apparently) at Gaydon this year and guess what was for sale an ex “RTITB” training motor an “AEC Mandator V8” 2 pedal job complete with trailer, unfortunately I didn,t get the phone no. of the seller but it was in immaculate condition in full RTITB livery and looked a treat
It would very likely still be for sale as I don,t think that were any serious offers but then again that was a few months ago so hopefully it has gone to a good home.
I have the phone number of the guy that owns this mandator.
Smashing bloke called Neil
Well, I’ve just been talking to our kid, and he thinks it wasn’t the mandator that was for sale, but the Commer 2 stroke in the left of the picture was for sale at some hefty price.
Also the mandator was never part of the RTITB fleet, but the guy who restored it just did so in its colour scheme.
Hope this helps.
kate it was part of the fleet the guy i bought it of in the first place gave me lots of history on it and i spoke to neil when he first got it
kate dont no why neil would say it wasnt one of the rtitb vehicles as it is listed as that in graham edge book on v8 mandators as rtitb and the chap who i got it from was a aec nut as i said before i got it 1989 and it was tidy then i had the grills rechromed and it had a black cab and red chassis also with it was a ex total oil v8 mandator breakdown with a shot cab a new engine in a create a 45 gallon drum full of bits and loads of books i only got it because the chap i got it from was tragically killed with his son in the zeebrugge disarster i was going to restore it with my brother in law when he also got killed in a accedent so when i was offered to sell it i dd and took to restoring other vehicles i will get a scanner tomoorow and send some pics of when i first got it although looks a 1000 times better now hope that puts the record striaght
Glenn
I was brought up with quite a well known fleet of Mandators in the south west. They were a fleet of about forty in the hey days, the firm acalled SPIERS OF MELKSHAM,
I have quite a lot of photos covering most of the history of the company up until we were taken over by TDG in 1999
I am new to Trucknet but will try and post some pics
Regards
Gazza[ 
I’d like to see those pics of Spiers of Melksham as I remember 'em very well in the 70’s.I was brought up on AEC’s from the MK3 Mammoth Major uppards so any AEC pics are welcome.
The only Spiers photo I could find was taken at Gaydon in 2004. The Willmotts Mandator was taken many years earlier on the old cattle market in Bedford.
mike t:
The only Spiers photo I could find was taken at Gaydon in 2004. The Willmotts Mandator was taken many years earlier on the old cattle market in Bedford.
A nice truck and a good sheeting job, always was impressed by a neatly roped and sheeted load 
As a young boy my fave lorry was the Mandator, but looking at that Wilmott motor it’s not hard to see why AEC & the rest are no more, that poor little Mandator was up against the new F10, 2800 Daf, Merc 1626, Scania 111 etc, even the other Brits, Transcon, ERF B, Slack Atki 400 etc were years ahead in power & comfort terms . How did these firms get drivers? The wages must’ve been bloody good!
It’s criminal that the incompetents at BL allowed one of the worlds best lorry manufacturers to wither & die so that they could continue making Allaggro’s, Maxi’s & Marina’s.
The problem was that in the days of Scammell / Guy / Leyland etc. and all the other british manufacturers, that when Leyland nationalised all the truck manufacturers the idea of the idiots that ran BL and the Govnmt. was that british haulage companies would only buy british trucks and the culture was at BL purely and simply we buy out the competition then shut them down. 
That way the hauliers will be “forced” to buy british trucks but the clowns who thought this idea up didn,t realise that the Germans / Swedish / Italian / and Dutch companies were producing something a lot better than traditional british wagons and produced a vehicle more in line with what the driver wanted and not the boss.
I have no experience of driving a Mandator, but for a while in the late 70’s I drove a Leyland Super Comet artic when i was trunking for High Street Transport (Burtons Tailoring transport division). The only thing “super” about it was the nameplate on the front! It was gutless, and had top mounted windscreen wipers which were designed to sweep the same water up and down the windscreen for ten minutes after it had stopped raining. Regarding the quick action window winder, it may have been ok when new, but several years down the line you had to wedge a lump of wood under it to stop it from falling down every time you went over a bump. Eventually it was replaced by an A series ERF with a 240 Gardner in it, which i thought was the bees knees at the time and pulled like a train up hill & down dale (apart from having to keep your left knee hard up aginst the gear lever in top to stop the rattle coming from it - Fuller range change RTO 9509 box I think from memory).
A mate of mine drove a Leyland Buffalo, (same cab as a Mandator) and thought that was brilliant apart from the spray from the front wheels making his mirrors unusable in the wet (I had the same problem with the Super Comet and used the time honoured method of tying a piece of rag to the mirror head, which flapped in the slipstream and if you were lucky kept the mirror clean enough to see through). He bought some aftermarket wind deflectors to fit on the front corners of the cab to try to stop this happening. Why weren’t these things found out by the manufacturers when designing these vehicles, given that they had the title “Ergomatic” (whatever that means in designerspeak). Oops, sorry, these vehicles weren’t “designed” were they? 
while reading these comments about the aec mandator i must remind you that leyland also had very similar models such as the beaver, badger, comet, octopus, these were real luxury cabs compared to the atkinsons, erfs seddons and guys we were used to, i seem to remember the holes in the floor around the pedals, handbrake and gear-lever, in the winter icy blasts and rain or snow coming up at your feet, in the summer the left leg getting burnt on the engine cover unless you put a coat or blanket over it, heaters that only worked from may to october, the engine noise so loud in the cab that when you got out you were deaf for half hour, the ergomatic cab wasn’t perfect with the air wipers that never worked in bad weather and the self undoing windows but in the mid 60s, compared to what else was on offer, it got my vote. when i worked on general express i had an old mk1 6 wheel badger that had been given surgery and had an axle removed, that was as i described above with the holes in the floor etc, an added extra was the alloy sheet cab, with the wooden frame so not only did the heater not work properly the cab was cold to start with and the alloy sheets held in the cold, in mid-winter i used to get out of the motor for a warm up, when i saw solly davies was getting 1418 mercs i decided a change was on the cards. but as i said earlier, for the time, mid 60s, the ergomatic , for all its faults was a nice truck to drive, the scanias, volvos, dafs etc have definitely improved the working conditions, but they have dragged everything else along with them like tachos, speed limiters and all the legislation that goes hand in hand with them.
The mirrors on the Mandator were moved from the doors and onto the windsceen pillars I think.I drove several and each one was different but far superior to the LAD cabbed Albions and Leylands and Park-Royal cabbed AECs.
I think the best one I had was a second-hand “M” reg with the Fuller Range-change box…but in 1976 I got me Marathon
Glenn ,I frove a mandator and a mk 5 mandator for j.wyatt jnr. of diss,terrific motors and when ‘breathed’ on ny the right men used to fly (i know mine did) got up graded later to a scania vabis but have fond memories of aecs, i even joined the aec society at one time
Proper LORRY 
,
loads of happy memories of one of the first lorries rode in with the old’ man , Swift transport[the red ones]-it was their mainstay general haulage motor in the early 70s , even remember reg. no’s - OFU 26M , PFW 363M , NFU 230M , CBE 315K , YBE 48K , just wish someone had some pics 
… Then they bought a Volvo 
& the rest is history 
A couple of AEC Mandators & Mercurys here taken at recent shows.
This one taken from one of my magazines.But can be seen on the many show circuits.
And hope you dont mind, just for good measure here is an Mamouth Major which I think looks brilliant.
John.
A.E.Evans Regent Transport ran a load of Mandators.
And a MK5 Mandator…
My dad bought 2 AECs at the firm where he was transport manager in 1973, a Mandator t/u CCX10K with the 10 speed Fuller gearbox and a Mercury rigid ECX561L. The Mercury was a flying machine 70mph+, the Mandator was a plodder, but used to fly up Windy Hill at 60mph+ when empty, fully loaded with 22tons (not bad for a 32 tonner) it was a different story!, my uncle who drove it was always glad he had 10 gears to play. compared with most of them which had the 6 speed “box”.
I remember he used to come up Chapel Hill in Huddersfield dropping down the gears at an alarming rate, hoping he didn’t have to stop at the lights, my dad used to take the easy route around by the Amsterdam Bar to avoid the hill! 
He had them recabbed as the tinworm had got hold and one of the biggest changes was the appearance of electric wipers instead of the air operated ones!
marky:
Yes - the Fuller Roadranger was fitted to some Mandators.David Hopkins has one with a Fuller in it - it’s a very nice motor.
David has sold that AEC to a collector in ireland who offered alot of pennies for her. she belonged to a very good friend of mind who has now passed on.
he sold it to David and did live to see her restored. and yes she had a 10 speed fuller, and nipped along very well. John richards who owned her got out of the yard before me one morning(he was about 50 years old ) i was about 12 years younger and had a 3300 daf and was not amused about this old man infront of me with this AEC. well we got on the A41 comeing out of Chester(at this time i did,nt know about the fuller and had driven plenty of 6 speed mandators)
off johnny went and i had got a passing place in mind thats a joke i could only just keep up so the next time i saw him the first question was whats in that bleedin motor… after a while he had a merc and we used the mandator for shunting and i loved driving her in the yard which was quite long and you could do
30 ish mph if no one was around to squeal how fast we drove. the gearbox it was impressive. another cockup not to fit a splitter box as standard
in a AEC.
John
Hiya …hows this for a spanking mandator it was regestered WRE581C. it has the Adams butter twin headlight convertion for night driving
these lorries was doing Leek to london colney 14/15 times a week parking up at saturday lunch and off again sunday tea time. serviceing was done
between changeovers. these lorries was still working hard in 1973.8 years of trunking with few engine rebuilds. i589.photobucket.com/albums/ss33 … GP2063.jpg[/IMG]
John
