Suedehead:
fryske:
A survivor
I know its an old pic but does anybody know if this vehicle is still around and if it is, who owns it?
It’s the first in the row of limited survivors/restored…out out of approx 100
It’s like going back to page one and starting again on here 
Remember this new pic from a couple of pages back? Now No.96 on my register.
I stumbled upon it again by accident on a French Flickr site with thousands of French lorry pics on. I only looked at the first 788 and it included a Cauvas pic we’re familiar with on here. Here’s the link if you’re interested:
flickriver.com/groups/17751 … teresting/
The reason I’ve drawn attention to it is that a large number of the pictures (including the NGC pic) were taken in Orly 94 Val de Marne, and at other similar Paris venues like Rungis, by someone signing himself as Mugicalin. This particular pic was taken in 1988, which is very late for an NGC to be still in service. If anyone on here is familiar with the photographer or knows him, perhaps more can be found out about this particular vehicle. Many of the pics he took in Orly appear to be at the same premises (Orly airport air-freight perhaps), so it is possible that the ERF was a yard shunter there in '88. If Mugicalin is a bit of a latterday gauloise Peter Davies, he will probably actually know something about his photo subjects!
Great detective work,
some recently dated pics too, hopefully someone will know them.
Steve
We still ain’t sure if there were a few more than the two known NGCs supplied to CAMEL in Jeddah. Cunard’s ill-fated venture was a subsidiary known as Cunard Arabian Middle East Line. There is plenty on this thread already about these. But Motor Transport enigmatically referred to ‘a number of steel-cabbed export models’ so there may well have been more than the pair they photographed for their article. We do know that CAMEL’s other (B-series) ERFs in Jeddah were bought up by local ‘internal’ operators (including Trans Arabia) who cannibalised them for spares.
I thought this key-ring was a nice piece of NGC memorabilia!
I must admit that I have never heard of C.A.M.E.L. before reading this thread but I do remember one of the lads who I did my first trip to Turkey with, telling me that he had been in the Fleet Air Arm. When he was getting de mobbed, he was offered a job with P. and O. they sent him to do his class one and then sent him out to Saudi Arabia for six months doing internals. This would have been in the early seventies, so I wonder if this was the same venture. 
mushroomman:
I must admit that I have never heard of C.A.M.E.L. before reading this thread but I do remember one of the lads who I did my first trip to Turkey with, telling me that he had been in the Fleet Air Arm. When he was getting de mobbed, he was offered a job with P. and O. they sent him to do his class one and then sent him out to Saudi Arabia for six months doing internals. This would have been in the early seventies, so I wonder if this was the same venture.
CAMEL lasted only from '76 to '83. As far as I’m aware, Cunard and P&O have always been rivals. There were so many people doing ‘internals’ in Saudi at that time to take up the slack caused by the Gulf being blockaded. Dammam, Dubai and Jeddah were favourites for bases. Trans Arabia, Falcon Frieght, CAMEL, Whitetrux, Astran, Caravan and Tacesa spring to mind.
For anyone else interested, I re-post the Motor Transport article here. It’s certainly good on detail.
mushroomman:
I must admit that I have never heard of C.A.M.E.L. before reading this thread but I do remember one of the lads who I did my first trip to Turkey with, telling me that he had been in the Fleet Air Arm. When he was getting de mobbed, he was offered a job with P. and O. they sent him to do his class one and then sent him out to Saudi Arabia for six months doing internals. This would have been in the early seventies, so I wonder if this was the same venture.
Hi
Interesting - Great to see the interest is still there.
The Cunard operation and P&O’s (they used GMC trucks) were very different and in separate compounds up the Mecca Road, really didn’t see much of them around the port etc. The P&O’s container operation initially used Saramat who had a fleet of about 80 Volvos all brand new, they were part of a Greek/Saudi operation running a Ro Ro trailer operation from Pireaus. Eventually P&O approached Trans Arabia to do sensitive deliveries with our few Muslim drivers which led to all the movements of all their empty container handling thru a container yard handling both empty and loaded containers. There was no contact between Trans Arabia and Camel, don’t now why but we held a lot of ERF spares, like them we learnt the weaknesses of the ERF.
Let hope more comes out.
Regards to all
Ken b
Here’s a post I made five years ago on here:
ERF-NGC-European » Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:44 pm
‘Cookie’ to the rescue! He’s just given me a bit more background info about the CAMEL operation. He remembers visiting their Jeddah premises in about '78. Apparently it ceased trading in about 1981. Four of the six B-series 6x4s went to a bloke from Preston called Jimmy Milson who ran his own ‘internals’ outfit in north Jeddah - he used 3 and kept the 4th one for bits. The day-cabbed B-series shunters went to Trans Arabia where they were cannibalised for parts. Apparently quite a lot of their stuff went for scrap so the NGCs probably didn’t make it to new lives and in any case they would have been getting on a bit, given the harsh terrain. Having said that, no one seems to know what became of them. Much of the actual work went to Trans Arabia. I love these conversations as they add colour to our strange quest for NGCs! Cheers.
Thanks for all the very interesting information. I was beginning to think that when my mate John, told me that he was working for P. and O. in Saudi, if Cunard had already amalgamated with P. and O.
As Trans Arabia has been mentioned, is this the same company from Northampton, I believe they were in the same yard as Knights of Old.
I loaded from there once for Ankara and somebody from their office or the yard foreman gave me three stickers. He told me to put one on the back of the trailer and to stick one on each side of the cab doors. I stuck one on the tailboard and the other two I kept in my briefcase for years.
mushroomman:
Thanks for all the very interesting information. I was beginning to think that when my mate John, told me that he was working for P. and O. in Saudi, if Cunard had already amalgamated with P. and O.As Trans Arabia has been mentioned, is this the same company from Northampton, I believe they were in the same yard as Knights of Old.
I loaded from there once for Ankara and somebody from their office or the yard foreman gave me three stickers. He told me to put one on the back of the trailer and to stick one on each side of the cab doors. I stuck one on the tailboard and the other two I kept in my briefcase for years.
Different company MRM. The Trans Arabia in Jeddah was set up with a Saudi partner as subsidiary of S Jones of Aldridge (hence the proliferation of ERFs!). Their lorries carried the same colour scheme as S Jones but with Trans Arabia logo and signwriting.
Les Sylphides:
Picture of a PKC model found online:0
Relating to your post: I’ve just come upon a youtube film of Goedkoop en de Geus Scania 140s going down to Iraq.
youtube.com/watch?v=dWg6unXwyXU
Did G&G’s ERF NGC(s) only do container work out of Rotterdam, or did it (they) also do Middle-East work?
It is unlikely that the G&G liveried NGC we already know about (87-69-RB) of Willenstein went much beyond de Nederland.
However, ERF-Continental once hinted at an additional G&G liveried NGC; and who knows (?) - that might have done M/E work. Unlikely! But worth the question!
vwvanman0:
0Spotted on fb with no info, pretty sure its been on here but thought i best check.
Steve
Thanks, yes it’s No.94 on the register. We know nothing about this one, other than that it’s French.
Quite brave, you would think, of TRUCK magazine to run a feature on lorry cab comfort for women drivers and then stand the female model in front of a 1974 ERF !
However, as we know on this thread, she was standing in front of an NGC which was far more comfortable other ERFs at that time.
She happens to be standing in front of No.89 on my register: the demonstrator at the 1974 Earls Court motor show. The small, distinctive and rather unusual black ■■■■■■■ badge on the grille enabled me some time ago to identify all other pictures of this demo unit; but we still don’t know where it went after the show. So keep your eyes skinned for that badge on any new pictures that come up 
.
It is now four years since this NGC was rescued and brought home for preservation by John Roberts of Peterborough. Does anyone know anything about its progress? Has work commenced on it? Has it been completed? Are there any pictures of its current state of being?
R
ERF-NGC-European:
0It is now four years since this NGC was rescued and brought home for preservation by John Roberts of Peterborough. Does anyone know anything about its progress? Has work commenced on it? Has it been completed? Are there any pictures of its current state of being?
R
Not seen anything about it Ro,but looking at his other motors that have been restored it will be immaculate.