Hopefully this wont be de railed by Carryfast but i know there were a quite a few American tractors based in the uk in the 70s and 80s such as White road commanders kenworth k100s and various mack truck. Just wondered if anyone here had experice as a driver or operator of these trucks and why they operated such a truck and the pros and cons and there opinion of the trucks compared to British and european trucks of the period.
What a really interesting theme for a thread.
I drove Macks, GMC’s and Internationals in the early 70’s.
The comparisons are really difficult because so much depends on their spec.
Some U.S. trucks were very basic indeed with little or no driver comfort such as the Mack R600’s while the R786’s cabovers were quite luxurious when compared with British equivalents but perhaps not as comfortable to drive as the F89 and 110 series from Sweden.
My last U.S. truck was a GMC Astro with Detroit two stroke and supercharged V8 developing 320 BHP (a lot at that time!)
That truck looked a million dollars but was a dog to drive since it had an Allison automatic box with five speeds in hign or low ratio. Two big problems were that to get it to do anything you had to keep your right foot hard down on a pedal which had a resist on it as do all large autos which is why I have varicose veins in my right leg and to change ratios on the auto box you had to be at a standstill!
Back in 1984 Dando’s wanted an earth shattering £54,000 for one of thier
350 ■■■■■■■ K100 Aerodiddlydynes.
I can remember thinking of what I could sell just to raise a decent deposit.
However,common sense kicked in and I realised I needed a truck that I could get spares for.
So for £29,500 I bought a 142 instead,and never regretted it for one moment.
14 TOO:
Back in 1984 Dando’s wanted an earth shattering £54,000 for one of thier
350 ■■■■■■■ K100 Aerodiddlydynes.
I can remember thinking of what I could sell just to raise a decent deposit.
However,common sense kicked in and I realised I needed a truck that I could get spares for.
So for £29,500 I bought a 142 instead,and never regretted it for one moment.
Was that new?
kr79:
14 TOO:
Back in 1984 Dando’s wanted an earth shattering £54,000 for one of thier
350 ■■■■■■■ K100 Aerodiddlydynes.
I can remember thinking of what I could sell just to raise a decent deposit.
However,common sense kicked in and I realised I needed a truck that I could get spares for.
So for £29,500 I bought a 142 instead,and never regretted it for one moment.Was that new?
Oh yes.
They had the two with 350 ■■■■■■■ and one with a 435 ish■■? Detroit.
I had a regular run to Bristol so passed the turn off to their yard quite
often.
I did however buy a KW cap and also a KW radiator grill badge.
I even paid a visit to Locks tankers to price up a Road Commander when they were an agent.
I suppose that I did not realise the potential that any break downs would cause.
I suppouse quite a lot of the mechanical parts could have been sourced through fodens as they were will down the ■■■■■■■ fuller Rockwell path by then.