Manor Farm Partnership.Major ■■■$ing Problems,More ■■■&king Pigs.
Ramone saying blimey he’s right.A few tonne and it’s even holding up a Merc.
The old Mercs have nothing in common with the new ones but the F86 is probably towing it
Don’t start him or we’ll be here all week.
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Sorry you are quite correct i will keep quiet
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What is the make of this truck, posted earlier on this thread, possibly Bristol or Thornycroft? And why the TIR plate? Is it entitled to work abroad? Thanks.
At first glance it looked like a Leyland to me with an altered front grill, but as far as the TIR plate is concerned some drivers who never saw a ferry thought it made them look as if they did.
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True enough.
It may or may not have been a genuine plate. Certainly more than a few poseurs around at the time…uummmm… around at all times.
There seems to be a recovery firm of the same name operating in the same area, so I would guess it is related, if not exactly the same company?
That’s what I thought - McCormick of Eastleigh: 24 hour recovery in Hampshire and Dorset - McCormick Recovery
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Let sleeping dogs etc. 
I’d say it was a '60s Guy, with that grille. People wore TIR-plates for fashion in the late '70s and the Leyland it’s towing would date from then.
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It’s genuine plate all right. Genuine only refers to them being the statutory dimensions. They weren’t registered (like Saudi transit plates for instance). In fact TRUCK magazine gave freebie adhesive-backed full-size ones in c.1977/8 which ended up on 15 cwt vans and anything with a flat surface! Strictly speaking, you didn’t even have to put the diagonal cross through the plate when not directly on TIR work, because UK police never enforced it to my knowledge. It was only the Gendarmerie in pursuit of a few extra Francs for their brandy at break who bothered about that kind of thing.
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I put a TIR plate on my BMC boxer but only went as far as Ireland. The first time the transport manger saw it he said take it off it’s illegal. I don’t know if that’s true or he was just trying to scare me.
Unnecessary rather than illegal I would have thought. If it was a tractive unit, you didn’t strictly speaking, need a plate on the front because the trailer was the TIR affected component. However, countries that sealed transiting artics at the 5th wheel did, despite TIR convention, prefer the tractor to display a plate.
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I never had a TIR plate in my life, I feel so bereft. But then I never needed one with a beautiful wife who, while I hid in the bunk, drove into the customs and charmed us both through in double quick time, and no money was needed. Especially in Italy. 
I once, hurrying through Dover picking up my trailer at the docks, forgot to put the reg. plate on the back of it. And continued to forget it. Once in Italy, while searching for somewhere to eat, I was stopped by 2 carabinieri bikers and instructed to put it on. One of them stood at the rear to make sure I did so and was shouting hurry up. I was halfway to the back to do so while Fran leant across the seat to ask the remaining one where the nearest resto was so she could eat, she was starving and in great distress so much so that her new friend, bedazzled by her low cut top, started shouting at me to come back quick because the signora must eat, I stopped and turned whereupon the bloke at the back screamed even louder but was drowned out by his mate shouting the opposite. I was bundled back into the cab, still clutching the plate and sent on my way with the instructions we desired. As soon as I parked, I put the plate on.
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Maybe a variation on that theme might have been recovery operators involved with international recovery ?.
Actually providing a more credible reason for it being there, than unfortunate domestic lumbered, international work wanabees, trying to fool themselves and everyone else.
McCormick still in operation today but IIRC by the son as I believe his father passed, Buzzer
An international recovery rigid wagon would not require TIR plates. In any case, international recovery was generally done by someone with a tractive unit.
You can guess all you like about the motives for people sporting TIR-plates in the '70s, but you cannot know what their motives were unless they told you personally.
I can smell the jealously from here.
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I never displayed a TIR plate, but then again, I was an isbe.