To a frustrated 12-year-old, the world of trucking always seemed to be so much more exsciting in the 70’s. Just looking at some of the old pics, especially the long distance driving ones, you had drivers in cuban heels and denim jackets with magnificent mullet hairstyles - not a hi-viz or a pair of rigger boots in sight!
But the most rock’n’roll of all the outfits in those days, familiar to readers of Truck magazine but also to those who devoured Rolling Stone or Sounds, was Edwin Shirley Trucking.
These guys always seemed to me to be the bad boys of the trucking world; their fleet of F88’s and DAF 2800’s in that unmistakeable purple/yellow livery, the drivers in Led Zeppellin t-shirts, pulling the stage shows for the biggest touring bands in the world - including the banks of Marshall amps that went up to 11!!!
The trucks were made for centre spreads - and I always remember a ■■■■■■■ ‘bird’ would be either hanging on to the grille or sitting on the rood while the drivers looked on as if it was no big deal. They had probably seen it all while on the road with Genesis or Pink Floyd…I mean, look at this one (copyright !
If you click on the ‘Jukebox’ link, then on ‘Wall of Infamy’ on the pop-up, you’ll get the full set of classic pics from those far-off glory days when men were men and a pair of spandex trousers was ok in the workshop…
It’s great to see that an old school firm like this is still going strong.
Im seriously considering ringing Trans-Am Trucking up for a job, as they arent far from me. A friend of a friend started for them this week, never been abroad, apparently his first gig id The Red Hot Chilli Peppers in Barcelona, think i2ll wait a couple of weeks and find out what the craic is, if its good, im going to go for it, (but without the spandex and the big hair!!! )
kindle530 I dont think you have to know much when you start . I may be wrong but you are taken on as second driver for the double manning jobs because running bent is finished. So an experienced driver will be sitting next to you plotting the route & handling the customs papers… Its usually just for the Summer months…Ends late September… As I say,I could be wrong… Nice way to spend the Summer…
mate of mine used to drive a band bus for Trathens from Devon in the late 70’s / early 80’s. He had some cracking pics of different tours he’d done with a lot of EST & TransAm Trucking kit - loads of crocodile skin cuban heels too
EST had 2 band bus’s as well, 1 was custom built by Lambourn, the horse box people, on a Volvo coach chassis.
Trathens are still at it, although they did go bust spectacularly in the mid 80’s. Think they’re owned by Parks Motor Group now.
Another one was Len Wright Travel, London.
Maybe I should start an Old Time Coach Driver Forum somewhere
Another company who do a lot of this work is Stardes, who I think are based in Sheffield. I was looking to see if I could dig up any old ‘bands on tour’ type photos, and there is a good page on their website:
mate of mine used to drive a band bus for Trathens from Devon in the late 70’s / early 80’s. He had some cracking pics of different tours he’d done with a lot of EST & TransAm Trucking kit - loads of crocodile skin cuban heels too
EST had 2 band bus’s as well, 1 was custom built by Lambourn, the horse box people, on a Volvo coach chassis.
Trathens are still at it, although they did go bust spectacularly in the mid 80’s. Think they’re owned by Parks Motor Group now.
Another one was Len Wright Travel, London.
Maybe I should start an Old Time Coach Driver Forum somewhere
Your mate may know my uncle from Plymouth he worked for Trathens in the 70s/80s Bob Hilton,
he too had the standard long perm & flares with the rest of the bling that went with the job .
From what my dad says it was one hell of a job with no time for stopping
and after 12 months the coaches were on there last legs from none stop running.
A couple of euro change overs in Orange with the Italy buses & 5 Plymouth to London National Express runs,
all in a weeks work
My dad went to the Trathens yard once and says he remembers seeing an all black coach there kitted out for the tours,
don`t know if this could be the one that you mention, ill try and find out a bit more info for you if i can.
…Of course if you really had style (and money) in the 70’s then you didn’t need to bother with trucks and coaches at all…bit tricky to back up to the stage door though!
i worked for a firm from brum - “Flights” and we started doing south of france / italy shuttles late 70’s with 2 drivers non stop from bham. used to use trathens oasis at orange as changeover point when things became more legal.
trathens were always at the forefront of the job, always trying something a bit exotic in their fleet and were the first to run quite a few different “continental” makes. I remember they had a girl driving for them who we always used to give a big wave and flash of the lights to when she would pass us at mach 4 (the rest of Trathens only seemed to reach Mach3.5). I’ve got a few sheets of A4 which is a copy of the draft of “The Trathens Story” which tells their history up to going bust in '85 with a full fleet list (sad I know!!) - the black one might be a Volvo / Van Hool they bought in about 84 - The Star rider - said to have been the most expensive coach on the road at the time - cost 250k when all the fitting out had been done - remember seeing it on i think a UB40 tour at Birmingham Odeon.
Was a good old crack doing the shuttle runs, mad dash of brits out of calais on a friday afternoon heading south. When we got onboard toilets fitted (ie - go faster for longer) our favourite hobby was “krauting” - get in front of a german car, preferably one pulling a caravan, flash the interior lights, and the rear gunner in the toilet would pull the plunger and dump the contents of the waste tank on the poor german holidaymakers. Shame.
If you want a copy of the Trathens stuff let me know and i send it to you.
When they started in the 70’s a few boys that I had worked with before at Thompsons of Moretonhampstead went to work for Trathens. One of them, Paul something, was there for quite some years.
A couple of stories I remember about them - one funny the other not.
In the old days when drivers hours were but a joke they used to do the old ‘phantom Frenchman’ routine at Orange and carry right on down to Tossa del Mar or whichever Tossa they were bound for. One trip there was a couple in the right hand front pair of seats who had been having the craic with the driver on the way down. When he continued after Orange - now some good way from the ferry - they were asking seemingly innocent questions about how that worked which the driver was answering in a full and frank kind of way. Only a fortnight later when he got back from his holidays did it emerge that the husband of the couple was a ministry man! Whoops.
The other was avery bad accident that one of theirs was involved in. The bus , with one driver and a stewardess, had come back from a ski-trip, dropped off in Sheffield and was going back to Plymouth. He must have fallen asleep because just south of the Avonmouth bridge he rear-ended a broken-down sheep lorry on the hard shoulder still going mach 3.5. The poor Firemen who had to clean-up the mess, which included all the sheep in the truck, had no idea that there was a stewardess on board till they found a shoe that did not seem to fit any of the sheep. Oh dear.
Tim - aren’t Phoenix connected with Buddens in someway ? Any ideas what happened to Len Wright, I know he split with Buddens in the early 80’s and went on to buy up some ex National Bus businesses and then went bust but seems to have disappeared since
Phoenix are connected with the Budden family, the company is owned by Simon Budden and two ex Len Wright drivers. When Len Wright folded the name and some assetts were brought by Clob Cantabrica from Watford, they still run a couple of sleeper busses under the name Len Wright band services.
Len himself Brought London busways when the government deregulated the industry in the early 90s, he then sold it to one of the major players in the market,not sure if its stagecoach or Firstbus, he then brought Limebourne a coach company from Battersea,that venture went bust around 1999. What he is doing now I am not sure.
This pic is of what was originally Len Wright Travel’s first purpose built band bus - WHO 947V, a Volvo B58 (with the THD100 engine) carrying Plaxton bodywork. I remember them getting it late 1979, it was painted up as Nightliner 1. In use as a stock car bus in this pic, wonder if its still about ?
)
& flares with the rest of the bling that went with the job 
