Shared a ferry crossing with this old girl last sunday

OUT OF HOURS TRANSPORT PHOTO FORUM (MEMBERS ONLY)
1

I saw this in Dover and was on the ferry wiith it. Talking to the driver he was off to a place south of Paris on the N7, I forget the name, where they are setting up a museum. He had about 350 miles to go from Calais and it’s average speed was 35 miles an hour. It sounded very sweet when he fired it up when we were getting off the ferry, he was parked right next to me.

On the ferry before our one were a couple of Routemaster busses and on the one after would be two steam engines and six shire horses all heading for the same place.

Sorry for the picture quality but i had to grab them a bit quick.

2

Nice one Neil, its an old MK1 I reckon! :slight_smile:

3

It’s no wonder us Brits have problems competing with Foriegn Hauliers. :laughing:
Or Maybe Mal has found somebody doing Continental work. :laughing:

4

1968 vintage the driver told me.

5

Reminds me of a guy I met years ago when I worked in a cold store.
He used to bring meat down to Faversham from Smithfield market and he had an old Atki,it was his own motor.
Anyway,he was telling us one day that he’d been over to Holland with some meat a couple of weeks before and in the morning as the boat was docking some Dutchmen were taking the mickey out of his old motor.
Even more so when he lifted the bonnet and removed the air cleaner cover to stuff a bit of diesel soaked rag into the air intake,which he promptly set fire to to get the old girl started.
We were killing ourselves laughing as he went on to tell how the entire deck filled with smoke as he warmed her up,and all the Dutchmen were coughing their rings up :smiley: :smiley:

Still makes me smile that story.

6

I can just imagine the Gendarmes pulling that and laughing at us :stuck_out_tongue:

Nice tidy truck though, International Haulage at its best :wink:

7

muckles:
It’s no wonder us Brits have problems competing with Foriegn Hauliers. :laughing:
Or Maybe Mal has found somebody doing Continental work. :laughing:

Thatd be a bit too quick for me Muckles, looks like it might have as big a motor as a 150 in it! :laughing:

8

But look at the sleeper cab on it! bet it even has a washing machine in it. :laughing:

9

Now that is what I call a proper wagon.

Then again, I am biased being an Atkinson owner myself!

10

It’s an interim model which technically should’ve been a Mk2. The chassis is 8’ track instead of 7’6" (flared front wings give it away somewhat) and the only reason it has a Mk1 deluxe cab (twin headlight) fitted is due to the factory not having ironed out problems with the new Mk2 cabs at that time.

They were known as Mk1-and a half’s at the time, and there were approximately 150 sold in this configuration while the cab problems were sorted out.

There are, of course exceptions to this rule - FB Atkins and Suttons were two operators who had extremely late registered Mk1 tractors (1969 H-plates and 1970 J-plates have been captured on film) which had 7’6" front axles under the narrow deluxe twin headlight cabs.