Dennis Javelin. Talking of old Scottish companies his one of Shore Porters from 1977.
Think i read they were the oldest removal company in the UK ?
DEANB:
Dennis Javelin:
DEANB:
McIntosh Bedford with Vanplan body from 1978.Some of those Bedford’s with 2 speed axle would crack on.Cracking sleeper conversion.
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This must have been one of, if not the, last vehicles bought by McIntosh as they went out of business in the late 70’s/early 80’s. The last custodian of what was at one time probably the premier removal company in Glasgow came to work with us in Pickfords in 1981. A great salesman who could achieve what seemed like really high prices for each job. Only problem was that he was a lousy estimator
Thanks for the info Dennis.
“lousy estimator”
Every time he did an estimate I had to double it to get the correct size but once we had the measure of him (no pun intended) it usually worked out in the end because he charged so much. I think his private education used to impress our clientele. We did one job that he priced to move the then vice-chairman of British Caledonian Airways from Glasgow to the Gatwick area. According to his calculations it would need a 2000 cu ft to get everything loaded. I recalculated his workings and he was correct - it did need a 2000’ cu ft van. Problem was that it also needed a 40’ step frame trailer as well. I think he quoted them somewhere around £6k for the job so bearing mind that this was 1982 we more than made out of it.
DEANB:
Seddon Pennine from 1969.Click on twice to read.
Where you find these articles from Dean?
I cannot remember ever seeing that in CM. It must have been their first effort before refining the van into something much more attractive. From that first effort they increased the gross weight to 13 ton & must have reduced the unladen weight t about four & half ton. We had 3 supplied by Seddon, all described as Seddon Pennine Pennine being their coachbuilding subsidy located next to their vehicle building plant. Our first was a true Pennine, built by them until their vehicle sales built up and they incorporated where they built the bodies into the vehicle plant and licenced Boalloy of Congleton to build the bodies. Boalloy purchased the fibreglass moulds for cab & luton front.
The first photo is one of ours after we had sold it to Joe Barnes, a removal contractor from High Wycombe area. He recently sent me copies of his photos as it was ready to go into his use after he had bought it & re-painted. Sadly I have no photos of it or either of its sisters in our livery and so far none have turned up.
When I looked at the photo I couldn’t help but ask myself ‘Why we sold it when it was so young?’ I could not remember anything of the sale but Joe told me I had collected him from Darlington Station in my Triumph Stag which I had bought new in 1974 and run till 1977. My dad had dealt with him , sold it to him, taken him to lunch & back to catch the train home and sent the van down with a London load & our driver had then delivered it and got a lift home with another one of our vans. Very strange as my dad hated dealing with sales and I usually did that.Sadly this all had come to light a few years after my dad’s death or its something we would have talked about.
Racking my brains I can only think the reason must have been Thorn Domestic Appliances had told us they only wanted deliveries on Tail Lift vans and we had been adapting most of our vans by removing tail boards, extending shutters & fitting tail lifts. Perhaps the backframes on Seddon designed bodies was not strong enough to fix tail lifts but also these vans were maximum length & fitting Radclife tail lifts onto the rear wuld have made them over maximuym length as they already were 36 foot.
My dad was not an enthusiast of Seddon or Boalloys efforts at building bodies & I remember him telling me I’m going to get Marsden to build a body on one of their chassis.'Will Seddon supply a chassis ? I asked as they were not listed amongst their bodies as they sold the Seddon Pennine vans as a completed vehicle through their franchises and it was on their price list. So we got the first of a series of pantechnicons built by Marsdan L and M reg and the last N reg built by Vanplan.
The first was a really beautiful van with wheel boxes (2 at from for front wheels & two rear) drop well and walk in tailboard making it a real large van. The one in the photo was the second about 2 months later same overall length & height but much smaller Cubic Feet as it had straight through floor ( no wheelboxes or drop well) and tail lift, which was specification for all others, We never modified the first as it was used almost exclusively on Removals throughout its life.
Marsden as did Vanplan put a lift up flap, painted silver on the van in photo which lifted up with stay to expose the front of the engine enabling dipping oil, filling oil water, window washers location of fuses etc where as on Seddon’s effort all has to be done within cab.
The Seddons were good vans with one dow side they fitted Perkins engines.We had bought 2 new Dodge Tractor units during the run of Marsden vans and we had serious problems with each having three new engines fitted within their 12 months warrantee and had it not been the long delay from ordering the chassis to final delivery of the vans we would not have continued buying and we had asked Seddon could we order with a Gardner engine, which oviously would have been more expensive but would soon have paid for itself with saving in fuel consumption alone and three times engine life at least. However Seddon said the chassis was not strong enough to carry a Gardner engine. The other problem was cost. Marsden used the scuttle of the cab as support & strength for the front of their integrals, and with the Seddon they got just a chassis so body building was much more expensive and complex without the scuttle structure so with this and the more expensive Seddon Chassis we could buy three new Bedford Marsdens for the cost of 2 Seddons, also Bedford had introduced the 466 engine which eventually evolved to the 500 and we were getting excellent results on our usage with these engines.
Well hope thats not too long winded Dean, but I must thank you for continually finding these excellent photos and articles. You through your efforts have shown how removal vans evolved and I cannot thank you enough. Like when we were in business it never gave me pleasure in seeing a new tractor unit or box van either, Coach built vans were all hand built all individual no two exactly the same. I was reading someone saying about Electric cars ‘They have no character or personality’ and to me that sums up todays commercial vehicles.
Dennis Javelin:
“DEANB”Thanks for the info Dennis.
Every time he did an estimate I had to double it to get the correct size but once we had the measure of him (no pun intended) it usually worked out in the end because he charged so much. I think his private education used to impress our clientele. We did one job that he priced to move the then vice-chairman of British Caledonian Airways from Glasgow to the Gatwick area. According to his calculations it would need a 2000 cu ft to get everything loaded. I recalculated his workings and he was correct - it did need a 2000’ cu ft van. Problem was that it also needed a 40’ step frame trailer as well. I think he quoted them somewhere around £6k for the job so bearing mind that this was 1982 we more than made out of it.
Stroll on Dennis,that unbelievable he could get jobs that wrong. So he was over 3,000 cubic feet out on that job !!! 
Its a wonder the blokes never killed him.
Pickfords 1977.
Click on pages twice to read.
Carl Williams:
“DEANB”Seddon Pennine from 1969.
Click on twice to read.
Where you find these articles from Dean?
I cannot remember ever seeing that in CM. It must have been their first effort before refining the van into something much more attractive. From that first effort they increased the gross weight to 13 ton & must have reduced the unladen weight t about four & half ton. We had 3 supplied by Seddon, all described as Seddon Pennine Pennine being their coachbuilding subsidy located next to their vehicle building plant. Our first was a true Pennine, built by them until their vehicle sales built up and they incorporated where they built the bodies into the vehicle plant and licenced Boalloy of Congleton to build the bodies. Boalloy purchased the fibreglass moulds for cab & luton front.
The first photo is one of ours after we had sold it to Joe Barnes, a removal contractor from High Wycombe area. He recently sent me copies of his photos as it was ready to go into his use after he had bought it & re-painted. Sadly I have no photos of it or either of its sisters in our livery and so far none have turned up.
When I looked at the photo I couldn’t help but ask myself ‘Why we sold it when it was so young?’ I could not remember anything of the sale but Joe told me I had collected him from Darlington Station in my Triumph Stag which I had bought new in 1974 and run till 1977. My dad had dealt with him , sold it to him, taken him to lunch & back to catch the train home and sent the van down with a London load & our driver had then delivered it and got a lift home with another one of our vans. Very strange as my dad hated dealing with sales and I usually did that.Sadly this all had come to light a few years after my dad’s death or its something we would have talked about.
Racking my brains I can only think the reason must have been Thorn Domestic Appliances had told us they only wanted deliveries on Tail Lift vans and we had been adapting most of our vans by removing tail boards, extending shutters & fitting tail lifts. Perhaps the backframes on Seddon designed bodies was not strong enough to fix tail lifts but also these vans were maximum length & fitting Radclife tail lifts onto the rear wuld have made them over maximuym length as they already were 36 foot.
My dad was not an enthusiast of Seddon or Boalloys efforts at building bodies & I remember him telling me I’m going to get Marsden to build a body on one of their chassis.'Will Seddon supply a chassis ? I asked as they were not listed amongst their bodies as they sold the Seddon Pennine vans as a completed vehicle through their franchises and it was on their price list. So we got the first of a series of pantechnicons built by Marsdan L and M reg and the last N reg built by Vanplan.
The first was a really beautiful van with wheel boxes (2 at from for front wheels & two rear) drop well and walk in tailboard making it a real large van. The one in the photo was the second about 2 months later same overall length & height but much smaller Cubic Feet as it had straight through floor ( no wheelboxes or drop well) and tail lift, which was specification for all others, We never modified the first as it was used almost exclusively on Removals throughout its life.
Marsden as did Vanplan put a lift up flap, painted silver on the van in photo which lifted up with stay to expose the front of the engine enabling dipping oil, filling oil water, window washers location of fuses etc where as on Seddon’s effort all has to be done within cab.
The Seddons were good vans with one dow side they fitted Perkins engines.We had bought 2 new Dodge Tractor units during the run of Marsden vans and we had serious problems with each having three new engines fitted within their 12 months warrantee and had it not been the long delay from ordering the chassis to final delivery of the vans we would not have continued buying and we had asked Seddon could we order with a Gardner engine, which oviously would have been more expensive but would soon have paid for itself with saving in fuel consumption alone and three times engine life at least. However Seddon said the chassis was not strong enough to carry a Gardner engine. The other problem was cost. Marsden used the scuttle of the cab as support & strength for the front of their integrals, and with the Seddon they got just a chassis so body building was much more expensive and complex without the scuttle structure so with this and the more expensive Seddon Chassis we could buy three new Bedford Marsdens for the cost of 2 Seddons, also Bedford had introduced the 466 engine which eventually evolved to the 500 and we were getting excellent results on our usage with these engines.
Well hope thats not too long winded Dean, but I must thank you for continually finding these excellent photos and articles. You through your efforts have shown how removal vans evolved and I cannot thank you enough. Like when we were in business it never gave me pleasure in seeing a new tractor unit or box van either, Coach built vans were all hand built all individual no two exactly the same. I was reading someone saying about Electric cars ‘They have no character or personality’ and to me that sums up todays commercial vehicles.
Intresting comments Carl about the Seddon Pennine motor’s. I must admit was never a fan of having wheel boxes although
appreciate what you are saying about the extra cube. Thats amazing that you could buy 3 Bedford Marsdens for the same money
as 2 Seddon’s.
Will pop some stuff on later or tomorrow about the Seddon Pennine.
This KM looks a bit strange with both bumpers removed chaps…and a TK bumper fitted…very unusual for a Pickfords vehicle
marktaff:
This KM looks a bit strange with both bumpers removed chaps…and a TK bumper fitted…very unusual for a Pickfords vehicle
Hi mark,never seen one with double lights on
smallcoal:
marktaff:
This KM looks a bit strange with both bumpers removed chaps…and a TK bumper fitted…very unusual for a Pickfords vehicleHi mark,never seen one with double lights on
Hi John,
Yes very strange looking…but you can clearly see it’s a KM with both bumpers removed and a TK bumper fitted…
How’s things John ?
marktaff:
smallcoal:
marktaff:
This KM looks a bit strange with both bumpers removed chaps…and a TK bumper fitted…very unusual for a Pickfords vehicleHi mark,never seen one with double lights on
Hi John,
Yes very strange looking…but you can clearly see it’s a KM with both bumpers removed and a TK bumper fitted…How’s things John ?
All good mate in Tewkesbury tonight Avonmouth for morning
