Nice thread…as I was not that far to go over all pages here…any news on AFGHAN INTERNATIONAL
with teh orange DAF 2800’s and DAF Eurotrailers as a part of the Dutch joint venture?
Hi ERF.I was the first driver employed by I.T.Holland\Afghan International.I had the first of the three blue and White Dutch registerd DAFs.The Afghan drivers were flown to Holland and then we worked with them for the first few weeks helping them learn to drive the DAFs,and then in DAF Rotterdam on a basic mechanics course.Then we each drove with four Afghanis through to Afghanistan on their first trip to show them the route and paperwork etc.They were fun to work with even though it was a lot of stress due to their lack of knowledge.Mike
Every picture on this page is as old as me,lets have somthing that hasnt been posted before 
Loose-wire:
Every picture on this page is as old as me,lets have somthing that hasnt been posted before
Hopefully you wont have seen this ? Mate of mine sent me the link
youtube.com/watch?v=iX1Z31etU-8
Regards
Kenny
Some proper belly tank on that Douglas Motor
Loose-wire:
Every picture on this page is as old as me,lets have somthing that hasnt been posted before
Well put some new ones on then. 
Is that Terry smith ex: SKENES - L/pool.
GUESTY44
Hi GUESTY44, I don’t know about that so I shall ask him the next time that I speak to him. I do know that when he left school he started working for Albert Dexter in Liverpool as a lorry boy. I also remember when he told me that he did a job for a bloke in Blackburn in the seventies down to somewhere in The Middle East. The wagon was bad enough to begin with and by the time that he got back it was falling to bits and told the bloke that it had series brake problems. The bloke said have a week off and that he would sort out all the problems before he did the next trip. When Terry went back to the yard the brakes were just as bad so he told the boss that there was no way that he was taking it out and asked for his cards. The boss said no problem I shall get somebody else to take it.
Two months later and Terry pulled onto The National Hotel in Belgrade, the same smashed up unit was on the back of a U.K. trailer on it’s way home and Terry heard that the driver had been killed. Did you ever hear anything about this GUESTY.
Regards Steve.
P.S. Great find Sgt major roadworks and Wheel Nut. 
Loose-wire:
Every picture on this page is as old as me,lets have somthing that hasnt been posted before
Roger, good to see you have dropped by, you must have some photos you can put on here to liven the thread up? Some old hands are blessed with the ability to recall minute detail and facts from trips long ago. Others have the ability to have a row in a phone box on their own.
Nice to see you back.
Mick
mushroomman:
Is that Terry smith ex: SKENES - L/pool.
GUESTY44Hi GUESTY44, I don’t know about that so I shall ask him the next time that I speak to him. I do know that when he left school he started working for Albert Dexter in Liverpool as a lorry boy. I also remember when he told me that he did a job for a bloke in Blackburn in the seventies down to somewhere in The Middle East. The wagon was bad enough to begin with and by the time that he got back it was falling to bits and told the bloke that it had series brake problems. The bloke said have a week off and that he would sort out all the problems before he did the next trip. When Terry went back to the yard the brakes were just as bad so he told the boss that there was no way that he was taking it out and asked for his cards. The boss said no problem I shall get somebody else to take it.
Two months later and Terry pulled onto The National Hotel in Belgrade, the same smashed up unit was on the back of a U.K. trailer on it’s way home and Terry heard that the driver had been killed. Did you ever hear anything about this GUESTY.oP.S. Great find Sgt major roadworks and Wheel Nut.
Are Astran still doing M/E work? if so how are they getting there? I last heard that they used a ferry from Iskenderun to Egypt then another across the red sea into Saudi, but I thought Egypt was a no-go now due to the troubles.
GORDON 50:
Are Astran still doing M/E work? if so how are they getting there? I last heard that they used a ferry from Iskenderun to Egypt then another across the red sea into Saudi, but I thought Egypt was a no-go now due to the troubles.
Interesting route. I would have thought Marseille to Port Said, then landbridge Egypt to the Red Sea port of Nuweiba would have been do-able. It’s not a brilliant route - I’ve driven most of it by car. From Nuweiba the ferry takes trucks to Aqaba in Jordan and from there you’d just nip up to Al-Umari / Haditha and be on the Saudi TAP-line ready to roll. The Egypt-Saudi crossings are only for Hajj pilgrims as far as I know, but I could be wrong.
However, now - as you rightly suggest - Sinai is now bandit country and not a good place to be driving any kind of lorry, let alone a foreign one (not that that has ever put Brits off driving to the Middle East!!). I now live in Cairo and I used to travel extensively in Sinai but we can’t now. I’d be very surprised if the route is currently viable. Here’s a picture I took of trucks queueing for the ferry to Aquaba at Nuweiba in Egypt. Robert 
Arabs love them old Mercs?
harry:
Arabs love them old Mercs?
I suppose you can’t blame 'em really, Harry. Mercs were never my cuppa tea, but they were comfortable to drive and the un-lively engines went on and on. Always had crap transmission. I gave up on them when EPS came along. The only decent one I ever drove was a 1633 (manual of course) in the '80s. I have to say, Dave Clarke’s 1850 with the dreaded EPS but a 500 lump was an uphill-down-dale machine and I did a trip to Fez (Morocco) for him in that. You’ve got to hand it to the South Africans, they put Fuller Roadrangers in all their Mercs! BTW I’ve posted a message to you on the North Africa thread! Regards, Robert
Turkey, Iran, down to Banbar Abbas then the ferry to the UAE. Ferry’s a bit iffy for timing, and Iran is still dodgy for issuing visas, other than the long queue at Gurbalak and high transit fee for Iran it’s all good.
Jeff
Check out the fuel tank on that first Merc in Roberts photo. Class.
David
David Miller:
Check out the fuel tank on that first Merc in Roberts photo. Class.David
Now that’s an interesting observation! I don’t think there’s much difference between the cost of diesel in Egypt and the Arabian peninsula. There certainly wasn’t when I was driving down to there. Perhaps the owner wanted a long-distance tank. Another possible explanation is that the unit (which wasn’t Egyptian, by the way - Syrian probably) had been bought from a Turk. The Turks used to run into the Arab countries with massive tanks because of the huge discrepency in fuel prices during the period when Turks were likely to have operated that Merc. All speculation, you understand but… Robert
Actually, when I looked back at the pics I took in Nuweiba, trucks of all Middle-East nationalities seemed to have massive tanks, so I’ll go for the safe-bet long-range running tank theory. Here are some more examples. Spot the ex-Hungaricamion frigo trailer! The third picture was of a Kuwaiti and I stopped to take cardamon coffee with him. We chatted about the routes. I only wish I had had the level of Arabic language I have now when I was driving to the Gulf! Robert
I think you are right, Robert. Also there was a difference in Saudi between fuel price near Dammam and the filling stations further up the tapline which, I think, was basically distribution cost. In the early days each filling station seemed to own their own tanker, always a rigid Merc with a kid driving it, sometimes on the right side of the road, who could barely see out of the windscreen. The price difference was small but you would have noticed it with a tank that size.
The Turks certainly went in for prize-winning fuel tanks. I remember seeing a Ford D1000 Tonka in Syria that was all fuel tank down either side of the chassis - the boy must have been good for 2000 ltrs at least.
I also see that they have moved away from the Merc normal control that they loved so much - and which, if I’m right, were being assembled by Mercedes in Dammam. They used to say that the cabovers were too hot and certainly the ‘yawning hippo’ type provided better protection in the event of the typical badge to badge collisions that were such a feature of the tapline. I used to love the Arab modification that had a coke can and a bit of string holding the bonnet open for better cooling but now it looks like they can afford A/C now.
Great photos - keep 'em coming!
David
Here’s my favorite big tank photo, there was a smaller one on the other side…I saw it a few times as far south as Ankara, this photo was taken somewhere around eastern France/ Gemany.
Jeff…