Hi and welcome Pete, it must have taken you a few days to read through this thread. Are you the Pete Matthews who had brother that missed a new Renault 360 by 2 inches in a game of golf ■■? if you are then I know you… Caberboard !!!
If you can’t get a raise out of Mackie I have his details, we were talking about you a few months ago…
Jeff…
caberboard a name off the past for me, last time I was in there with f88, bright orange she was. me brother maybe was with me, was teaching him to drive, he must of done 50,000 miles before setting his test, double maning it, jessus that’s early eightys, are you jeff eliot you had Volvo draw bar out fit from Scottish borders,
I like to see dave share a few wee whiskys with him before I am not allowed any more, its amazing who I am seeing here, names are poping upm in my brain of old drivers,
billy reader = eddie Nixon in harbour in pireaus, doing dum cockney rime and slime, billy you rember me getting bit on the arse we adog on grass out side telephone place there,
joe 90, taf trailers with transleen
ritcie hatton x transleen, landfast, c brearley, last I new he was with hoggspeed
Gordon graham from shots
dereck rance
dave chamberlandhugh and George mcleland
team thorne Sammy Ritchie anddavid
young stevie from forrest of dean
jobie forrest of dean
ned Kelly
pete Andrews overnight sensation
shubacker
brumie dave and his brother john boy, his dad roger Webster
nick man bull
wayne skinner
bob headley
rick ellis from halleys
wally scrinigers drivers anmes ,cant quite place
hoss with double drive trans con
roger rabit rabit hutch daff
many more names out there I have forgot
Yes that was me with the F7 drawbar. I’ve been a few places since then.
Dave and I were doing Kazakhstan in at the same time in the 90’s, I was on for a different mob.
I remember coming round to Livingstone, you and your brother were fitting an extra bunk in your F88, looked a bit snug but you had to do what you had to do. If I remember you were pulling for A1.
You were green with envy every time you saw that silver Foden of Murphy’s with the 420 Cat.
Dave’s got his own site Dave Mackie long haul trucking … worth a look.
Jeff…
aye jeoff nice to make contact with you
am 1 Volvo down and 3 scania down all past away they have,
now no more trucks illness taking over, Russia blew me away when I first when there, Ukraine crimea oddessa zafarossa barispoll,
last job was on fridges doing the lambs hard work but no fun, full singing dancing 520 Volvo fridge frezzer microwave, meet athol aderson in market in brussells there on same work to be told he past away in his truck in peth few months later, came throu rommo and hungary wiyh him in his 142 scania draw bar the race was on.
do I miss the old job, yes, dirt, red derv, carnets, long border, break downs, never been on the end of abar but I have pulled a few on a bar, and the same person twice,
so to the wheel [polishers the bright lights and uniformed drivers off today, you all missed out on proper jobs, so keep your truck shows there not for me
petre
Hi Pete there’s another thread on here. I’ll bump it for you, go to the last page you’ll see what I’m on now… At my age I should know better…
Just to dumb to stop…
Photos of trucks form Australia and Tasmania…
Jeff…
I was on Top Run Trucks ch and was looking at the thread about Ferdy going to Iran with his mate in the Scanias.
In part II ( about half way down the page ) there’s a photo that he took of the wall in the Europa Otel in Imran. It’s all the Polaroids of the Brit drivers form back in the day. It’s a bit blurry but good enough to recognise some faces form the past…
Jeff…
I’ve just been on the Toprun site and looked at parts 1 & 2 of Ferdy’s ‘Silk Road - Route de la Soie 2014’ thread. TOP MARKS to them for doing this vintage Middle-East run! The pictures are superb. I’d love to do one, but you’d have to find me a nice vintage ERF left-■■■■■■ first! Robert 
PS Thought you’d like this pic.
I’m looking for information and pics of a leyland marathon middle east spec that did runs for astran
As far as know there were only 2 Marathons that did a run for Astran one was the truck that ■■■■ Rivers drove in Destination Doha and that was donated by Leyland as a publicity gimmick for Leyland. The other was double drive that Leyland also gave Astran and it only did a couple of trips as it just wasn’t suitable, then it was returned to Leyland. A Leyland engineer went along to Tehran with it and it was so bad that he decided to fly home rather then come back in the truck.
BRS overland tried to do it in Marathons, but various things like union involvement, inter company politics, naivety of the people involved, and the unsuitability of the trucks soon put an end to that. They did get the trucks on Blue Peter though.
Vebbalink out of Holland tried to use Marathons well, but again unreliability of the trucks put an end to that as well. They were quickly replace with Merc and Scania.
On paper the Marathon with it’s ■■■■■■■■ Fuller, Rockwell drive train options should have been well on top of the job, but alas the story tells it’s own tale. Not enough development and bad build quality took it’s toll on what should have been a top European seller.
My dad ran a Marathon for a few years and the service that he got from the local Leyland dealer was shocking to say the least, the truck was in the work shop more than it was on the road and it nearly sent him bust just trying to sort out constant problems.
Jeff…
Jelliot:
As far as know there were only 2 Marathons that did a run for Astran one was the truck that ■■■■ Rivers drove in Destination Doha and that was donated by Leyland as a publicity gimmick for Leyland. The other was double drive day cab that Leyland also gave Astran and it only did a couple of trips as it just wasn’t suitable, then it was returned to Leyland.
BRS overland tried to do it in Marathons, but various things like union involvement, inter company politics, naivety of the people involved, and the unsuitability of the trucks soon put an end to that. They did get the trucks on Blue Peter though.Vebbalink out of Holland tried to use Marathons well, but again unreliability of the trucks put an end to that as well. They were quickly replace with Merc and Scania.
On paper the Marathon with it’s ■■■■■■■■ Fuller, Rockwell drive train options should have been well on top of the job, but alas the story tells it’s own tale. Not enough development and bad build quality took it’s toll on what should have been a top European seller.My dad ran a Marathon for a few years and the service that he got from the local Leyland dealer was shocking to say the least, the truck was in the work shop more than it was on the road and it nearly sent him bust just trying to sort out constant problems.
Jeff…
I think it’s the one in destination Doha looks like this
Not surprised leyland made a bad job of it from what I read they rushed it to bring it out before scania and volvo brought out there new models for the hight demand of western products being transported to the middle east
Astran didn’t own any Marathons. There are loads of pictures of the Marathons that ran in Astran colours on this thread. I know there are over 200 pages, but its a good read! Robert 
robert1952:
Astran didn’t own any Marathons. There are loads of pictures of the Marathons that ran in Astran colours on this thread. I know there are over 200 pages, but its a good read! Robert
I on page 5 tell you when I have read them all
mr jelliott not sure but r u saying that brs overland drivers were not upto the job
Simon International had a MK1 big sleeper LHD Marathon running out to Teheran for a few years.
stevejones:
mr jelliott not sure but r u saying that brs overland drivers were not upto the job
No not at all, but it has been well documented that at times there were restraints put on them by management and unions. And by restrains I mean that there were other companies that went night and day with little regard for the driver until the job was delivered, both ends. If you have to play on an uneven playing field where the odds are stacked against you because the other guy isn’t playing by the rules, then it’s hardly fair.
It defiantly wasn’t meant as a derogatory comment about BRS or any other companies or drivers of the period, that’s how it was, we all did it how we saw fit or how we had to, to get the job done.
What I did say was that the Marathon wasn’t up to the job, if it had of been then everyone would have using them instead of Scania, Volvo, Merc, etc, and that in itself is a crying shame. And a whole other issue that has been well covered on other threads. I’m not saying that the others didn’t have their own problems, but history shows that they were the tool of choice at the time and nothing can change that.
I dare say that there were a few Marathons that were operated to far a wide destinations quite successfully, as were there many other small numbers of other brands, but you can’t help but observe that there were certain brands that were more successful than others.
There’s another thread on here M/East Anglo Greek Open Question … lurking about page 3, poised by Deckboypeggy that goes deeper into the BRS situation.
On page 4 you’ll find a thread about Leyland Marathon with a well documented list of their faults.
Jeff…
newmercman:
Simon International had a MK1 big sleeper LHD Marathon running out to Teheran for a few years.
There were three on the firm when I was with Simons. Two in Simon colours (blue & white)LHD ,one of which Bernie aka zwei meter funf drove and there was a purple/mauve coloured one too which was possibly RHD.
jelliott /got ya I know a little bit of them as my uncle drove for them from the beginning .was in the truck with him a few times then drove 1 myself early in my career .then he worked for biffo/funstons with new 89 which he did prefer but saying that I always had soft spot for that ol m/e brs marathon as to me a kid at the time it was the kiddy tks for reply
