I drove from 1965 until 2008 and I never drove a Bedford Morris or Austin but ended up by driving seventeen makes of truck from a gate change Scammell Highwayman and a AEC Monarch with two gear levers to a new MAN with an autobuggery gearbox and no gear lever.
At the start nearly everything on the road was British and it did not seem possible that it was all about to be replaced with imported makes.
Will today,s handfull of manufacturers go down the same slippery slope and perhaps be pushed out in years to come by trucks built in India or the far east.
I reckon in two or three years we’ll have some Far East trucks working over here, once they can source the right engines to cope with emissions regulations. Chinese plant is slowly making in roads, dealership permitting. Hyundai are selling plant to firms once loyal to the likes of JCB (Hyundai excavators are a better machine IMO).
On a tangent, why are Sisus not sold over here? They look tough as nails, would be ideal for tipper work.
Sinotruck are meant to be coming to the UK with 8w tipper and mixer chassis. I reckon they’ll fill the budget gap left by Hino, who are also meant to be coming back with a Euro 6 model.
with the likes of scania out sourcing coach bodies from china it wont be long before (as a certain book says)the east will rise and conquer the earth. you missed out not driving bedfords they ruled the earth then the management fell asleep like the rest of our industrial past.