Also the Cheetah, from 1935. A hybrid - part Lion and part Cub.
Yes I forgot the Lion and Cheetah. Lincoln Transport Museum have one of each if I remember rightly.
I’ve also found a reference to a Leyland Bull and Leveret and a Titanic (that one sank like … )
I’ve found a picture of a Lion still in service with ■■■■■■■ Classic Coaches.
Apparently it ran Glasgow-Inverness daily for 10 years!
And here’s a Leyland Cheetah on the HCVS London-Brighton run.
And a Lioness - a true beast
For more Info read here:
Calv
here is that steer i said i’d post boden
that lioness looks great calv, and i aint usually much interested in coaches!
That twin steer Steer reminds me of the Mandators that ICI equipped
themselves with. I had previously had a conversation in a layby with one of
their drivers who had mentioned they were all getting them. I had no idea what
he was talking about 'till I saw the first, pulling a flat trailer with tall, about 2 or 3
ft. square containers lined up with a sort of post and rail arrangement to keep
them on. I was very envious 
.
The semi auto Beaver I did drive at Bunny Hill Motors. A good motor but they
kept breaking. Could have had something to do with the racing changes
everyone employed 
. He had 6, all with 39’ flats on handball tiles and
cable cover deliveries, back breaking work but we always made sure the
return loads (which we used to find) required no muscle 
.
Salut, David.
Here we go David - I think this might be one of the wagons you refer to.
The thing about this forum is that there is always someone with some link or connection with the subject which it makes it all so interesting .
The only two - pedal Beaver I saw in the flesh was operated by Saxtons of Outlane nr Huddersfield on livestock haulage pulling maybe a 33’ footer. The winter of 68 springs to mind at a very snowy Northallerton cattle market which is still in use, there was another market on the left after the railway bridge and Sunters yard but has been apartments for years , though that one was great place to watch Sunters’ going round the roundabout with those massive girders on self steering bogies. But I digress, so sticking with Leylands Saxtons had the first Lynx rigid I saw ,on a H plate and they also had a LAD cabbed Badger. Saxtons closed around 76/77 but the book by Graham Edge about the Beaver features a rigid they operated pre-war and I was told that the TRUCK SALES site you can see on the east bound side of the M62 around Huddersfield is their old place, but that might be duff info.
The first Lynx unit I saw was operated my Dads old employer W.Smith Ltd from Rossendale again a H plate on livestock haulage. This was later retro fitted with a blower and relegated to pulling a single axle trailer and a Scania 80 took its place.Smiths closed in 75 but like Saxtons one of their wagons can be seen in a Graham Edge book. On the back of his treatise on the Octopus there is a LAD version carrying the name of Leyland Bros-coincidentally- but was on contract from Smiths and normally pulled a drawbar. I wrote to Graham about this and he did remark that there is always someone who can add a bit more.
With regard to real winters, again in 68 I can recall being sat freezing in our Morris 7 tonner on the car park at Wetherby (another cattle market now closed) and an Air Products Mammoth Minor backed in alongside and he had studs on his drive axle ,never seen any since.
I know all this was 68 because the following year we had AEC and I managed to lock us out at Wetherby.I thought I would be in big trouble but when Dad turned up he was pretty laid back and after a few unsuccesful attempts with car keys the driver of Swiers of Easingwold ‘s Octopus turned up,this was an F reg with a massive 30’ box. As requested he tried his key and it opened no problem, so we were’nt all that late home after all.
Yes, the Leyland Steer axle configuration is like the twin-steer AEC, the Mammoth Minor. That is what I’d say Marky’s picture is of.
In 1971 I knew a Scotsman, J J Campbell, who had one, he and his mate used to double-man it up and down to London with a 40 ft. flat trailer. My governor used to give them part loads back up to Scotland sometimes. This bloke said it was one of the best units he’d had, it had the AV760 engine.
Yup - Allied Mills had Mammoth Minors (the Lofty Peak one pictured above is actually one of theirs) and the drivers at Seaforth who had a couple of them rated them very highly.
The rest of the fleet at Liverpool was totally ERF with Gardner 240s in all but one (220 ■■■■■■■■ and when double-heading to Bradford’s bakery at West Bromwich, the AEC would always get there first - pulling exactly the same weight as an ERF with (supposedly) more power.
I can only reflect that the 760s in those particular Mammoth Minors were pushing more out than that detailed under Sheeters picture. Didn’t the later variants push out around 254 bhp? If so, that would account for the performance. Another thing that drivers remarked on favourably was the handling characteristics - one driver in particular commented that it steered like a car, and had fantastic brakes.
am i right in saying that the av760 eneded up as the tl12 in the marathons, and the l12 in the buffalo/octupus ect?
Yup - the L12 and TL12 were further variants of the AV760.
Can you believe that a friend of mine couldn’t even give away an L12 engine not long ago?
It was on a frame and coupled to a six-speed gearbox, not done many miles at all. Ended up being weighed in for scrap.
i wonder why? theyre only modest in power, but are a good slogger, youd think someone would want it. ive drove 2 trucks with the l12 in one was an artic, a buffalo with a sleeper conversion, and a bison 6 wheel tipper. the engine was adequete fir the arctic, but very very good in the 6 legger! the buffalo had a straight six box, and performed reasonably at 32 tons, no need for a splitter! i did find the 511fixed head - fuller 9 speed buffalo had a livelier performance and a bit more power, but the l12 was not at all bad.
Yep me too Guest, I drove a six legger constructor with the TL12 in and it was an absolute flyer. I used it on shop deliveries into Lancs from York every day, it did not matter which way I went. Across the M62 or over the A59 that old girl just ate up the miles and spat them out behind her!
regards doublereduction.
It seems the only reason Leyland went for the ‘Animal’ names to denote the types of vehicles they were producing was to make it easier to remember the various models, which increased after the Badger and Beaver names brought in around the 1920’s/30’s. They like other makers had used confusing numbers and thought (rightly in the end) names would be much easier to recall. Who remembers for instance what the numbers were of the preceding models of the Borderer, Leader, Searcher etc from Atkinson! It appears Leyland also produced a Twin Rear Steer Six Wheeler before 1930 to counteract tyre scrub on multiaxle vehicles, just goes to show nothing is new and even in the early days there were some very active mechanical minds in the transport industry. Franky.
Oh one more name I’ve come across from Arthur Ingrams Leyland book, the ‘Rhino’ which was the first oil engined chassis. Franky.
doublereduction:
Yep me too Guest, I drove a six legger constructor with the TL12 in and it was an absolute flyer. I used it on shop deliveries into Lancs from York every day, it did not matter which way I went. Across the M62 or over the A59 that old girl just ate up the miles and spat them out behind her!
regards doublereduction.
i hope you’ll excuse me for butting in but i think you’ll find that the engine in the constructor six was actually a tl11.we ha a couple of late bisons with this engine at wimpey mining where i did my apprenticeship(fitter)they were quicker than the l12,s and considerably quieter!