Well, I do. A bit 
Acutally I would fancy to drive one once…
I wanted to try to drive British lorries, but due my career as an agency driver, I only managed to drive Foden, Seddon Atkinson and Leyland, so I still have ERF on my “to do” list…
Harry Monk:
It’s a class thing.ERF and Foden were owned by wealthy companies who didn’t give a monkey’s about the working class person their product was aimed at.
Volvo and Scania are Swedish, and Swedes don’t have this fixation with “class”. They understood that the bloke who worked in that truck all week deserved a decent deal, and that’s why they are successful and ERF and Foden have gone.
And good riddance to them.
What a load of crap. I worked for a company that ran fodens alongside scanias. They bought the best trucks avalible for the job.
Even now I think the foden 8 wheel chasis with rubber suspension is probally the best tipper chassis ever made. 6x4 tractors for landfill work a foden is still the best for the job.
Sadly the cabs let them down though.
Its all about evoloution . The brits did not evolve as they should have done due to chronic lack of investment and poor industrial relations practices . some brit motors were great such as the multifuel bedfords mk,s touugh as old boots , which i drove back in the late seventies in the army .
some were truly terrifying like the crap seddon 240 6 wheeler i drove in the late eighties.
A good book about how to some companies steal the march on their competitors with the use of industrial espionage to acheive their goals is " stealing speed" by mat oxley a fascinating tale of how suzuki engineers stole two stroke technology from mz to achieve success in grand prix racing in the sixties . a great read .
regards tzz
mucker85:
i quite miss my foden.345 Cat made a lovely noise and the exhaust brake set off car alarms and frightened schoolkids.
No. I’ve only been driving ten years so never had to suffer them much, the engines were bullet proof, hence firms loved them. But they couldn’t live with the quality of finish the swedes provided. The only good ones were the ect and alphas with man and daf cabs imho
Do I miss driving the British trucks no but at the same time I don’t miss driving the European trucks I drove 10 years ago compared to the new Volvo I drive. I love going to gaydon and looking at the old trucks and if I had the time space and spare cash would think about having one to do shows but for work il have something new given the choice.
kr79:
Harry Monk:
It’s a class thing.ERF and Foden were owned by wealthy companies who didn’t give a monkey’s about the working class person their product was aimed at.
Volvo and Scania are Swedish, and Swedes don’t have this fixation with “class”. They understood that the bloke who worked in that truck all week deserved a decent deal, and that’s why they are successful and ERF and Foden have gone.
And good riddance to them.
What a load of crap. I worked for a company that ran fodens alongside scanias. They bought the best trucks avalible for the job.
Even now I think the foden 8 wheel chasis with rubber suspension is probally the best tipper chassis ever made. 6x4 tractors for landfill work a foden is still the best for the job.
Sadly the cabs let them down though.
The fact is if it’s a case of something that can do the job and last then it’s either Brit and/or yank engineering that’s best.
flickr.com/photos/homer----s … 4293162077
and as an example of my own experience of British v German engineering no surprise which one is parked up and zb’d and which one could/can still do the job.
By the way it’s that bit on the roof called the monitor that puts the fire out and no surprise which one is best either probably because the Germans weren’t much good at casting a decent swivel head and fabricating a proper one from sheet aluminium instead of using a piece of pipe bought from the local DIY store.
saairforce.co.za/the-airforc … ire-tender
fire-engine-photos.com.s3.amazon … /17039.jpg
Which seems to prove the point that the Germans were being paid more to turn out inferior overrated products during the 1970’s at least in this case.
What didn’t help Leyland Trucks was that money was wasted building so many crap cars.
Carryfast:
Which seems to prove the point that the Germans were being paid more to turn out inferior overrated products during the 1970’s at least in this case.
Hence the current world dominating British truck industry. 
You know Carryfast one day you may realise that everything and I really mean EVERYTHING you put on this forum does really seem to have been proven wrong by history and yet you still post it.
Well done on your tenacity, I admire a chap who will cling on to his morals despite fact flying in his face.
My ■■■■■■■ powerd twin splitter ERF was a good tool I miss it.
andyh7 sorry but your wrong,our own govements at the time were dithering on about gross weights and sending out messages so as the truck builders did not realy know what product was required…,the fight against sleeper cabs by unions,this at a time when digs were well enough said,As for the aircraft industry just read about the world beating BAC LIGHTNING and the government meddling,
Yes, one of my favourite motors was an EC with a ■■■■■■■ in it. Olympic cab was massive, air con, electric everything and a swivel passenger seat with table. 
Simple bulletproof and comfortable
If I could have one today I would, especially if it had a proper box and jake.
At the end of the war Europe was flattened,the Marshall Plan came in and they the Europeans were GIVEN a complete new infrastructure.The Allies soldiered on with our broken down factories and railways.I well remember working with machine tools that were much older than myself.The above explains why their exports overtook our homemade offerings.
alamcculloch:
At the end of the war Europe was flattened,the Marshall Plan came in and they the Europeans were GIVEN a complete new infrastructure.The Allies soldiered on with our broken down factories and railways.I well remember working with machine tools that were much older than myself.The above explains why their exports overtook our homemade offerings.
Who was GIVEN, that was GIVEN. Some had to GIVE to another Ally, the big one in the East. In 1940’s and 1950, Soviet trains were riding along the Polish railroads and they were virtually cutting the electicity poles with saws and putting them on the cars and removing to the Soviet Union. And that just one of many examples.
I still waiting for the day when for Britons Europe will mean Europe, not just the Western Europe. How is that that, for example, if you buy sat nav in UK (which I recently did) you have to choice between “Europe” and “Europe incl. Eastern Europe” or “Full Europe”, while for example in France you have “Europe” if it has European coverage and “Europe de l’Ouest” (Western Europe) when it covers Western Europe only…
Eastern Europe is as much in Europe as Western Europe, and for sure is more in Europe than you, Islanders 
schrodingers cat:
Carryfast:
Which seems to prove the point that the Germans were being paid more to turn out inferior overrated products during the 1970’s at least in this case.Hence the current world dominating British truck industry.
You know Carryfast one day you may realise that everything and I really mean EVERYTHING you put on this forum does really seem to have been proven wrong by history and yet you still post it.
Well done on your tenacity, I admire a chap who will cling on to his morals despite fact flying in his face.
+1. And also reading Carryfast is really amusing, especially that you DO have knowledge on the subject he’s speaking about
schrodingers cat:
Carryfast:
Which seems to prove the point that the Germans were being paid more to turn out inferior overrated products during the 1970’s at least in this case.Hence the current world dominating British truck industry.
You know Carryfast one day you may realise that everything and I really mean EVERYTHING you put on this forum does really seem to have been proven wrong by history and yet you still post it.
Well done on your tenacity, I admire a chap who will cling on to his morals despite fact flying in his face.
The fact is quality by itself doesn’t always make for a successful business operation.Which is why China is now ahead of both us and Germany.However the fact is as I’ve said elsewhere the British truck manufacturing industry was only turning out the type of products which it could sell at the time and those products therefore reflected the demands of it’s main customer base in the domestic market.No surprise that those customers eventually jumped ship when they realised that they’d been asking those domestic manufacturers to build underpowered,uncomfortable,cheap and nasty guvnors wagons unlike the Scandinavian and European competition.
But that difference between that German idea of an aircraft fire truck compared to the British one of the same period is a more accurate reflection of what the Brits could do given a decent customer base which in that case was mostly in the export markets not the domestic one.However as the Germans showed there’s no way that any industry can be successful just based on exports alone without also having dominance in the domestic market too.However unlike the Brits the Germans mainly bought German products even in cases where those products were inferior to the British competition as in that example of a German product which was built for it’s home market although it couldn’t compete with it’s British competition in regards to performance or value for money.
In a word, YES. I’ll have my ERF back anyday over the Scania 4 series I am now in. Better engine, ERF has brakes Scania does not. ERF much better to live in all week. My only gripe with my old ECX is it wasn’t allowed to have a twin splitter but the eaton syncro was ok.
Apart from the brakes there is nothing much wrong with the Scania its just that the ERF was much better. Oh and the Volvos we got have rubbish visability. Buy british lads its better.
and here we [zb]ing go again
orys:
schrodingers cat:
Carryfast:
Which seems to prove the point that the Germans were being paid more to turn out inferior overrated products during the 1970’s at least in this case.Hence the current world dominating British truck industry.
You know Carryfast one day you may realise that everything and I really mean EVERYTHING you put on this forum does really seem to have been proven wrong by history and yet you still post it.
Well done on your tenacity, I admire a chap who will cling on to his morals despite fact flying in his face.
+1. And also reading Carryfast is really amusing, especially that you DO have knowledge on the subject he’s speaking about
I’ve certainly got the knowledge of at least that example in which the British product was superior to it’s German competition.