Well known to all the regular blog readers, here she is on her final delivery to mainland Europe. After 9 years service and 987,000KM under her belt, GB05 STE is seen above delivering to a new French Connection shop in Grenoble, France. I don’t think Steve Marsh could even begin to work out the amount of times he has driven GB05 over French soil but this the final trip was a nice little run to finish a fairly glamour career. This last trip started from Marshy’s Warrington base, with a run down to Leicester for 2 pickups, on to Purfleet for a 3rd collection before heading to Dover and then onward to Grenoble and the delivery point. Once empty it was time for a top up from the local Carrefour (see below),back up to Amiens to reload for Ellesmere Port, just a stones throw away from Warrington and home. A steady 2800KM later and the curtain was down on GB05’s European days. To say Steve and little MAN TGL have been some places is almost an understatement, having covered hundreds of thousands of miles together……..

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Rep, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Isle of Man, Italy, Luxembourg, Majorca, Malta, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Sardinia, Sicily, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Tenerife…….oh and the lsola del Giglio off the Italian Coast, you know the one where the captain parked his cruise ship on the rocks!

The days of Europe now over, there was still one more trip involving a ferry left to complete. Start, Warrington, load Worcester for same day delivery to Belfast and Newtownards in Northern Ireland. A typical job for Steve and GB05 STE completed with no fuss, pretty well the same since she was registered back in November 2005.

Finally Steve made the decision to update the ageing TGL for a newer Euro 6 version. It’s taken a year to put GB14 STE on the road (that’s another story!) but now she will be Steve’s new workhorse and GB05 is up for sale and available to go to a new home. If you have any genuine interest in buying Steve’s old steed then please email Steve; marshy@stevemarshexpress.co.uk or you can leave a comment below with your phone number and I can pass it on. Not a lot more to say other than I’m sure Steve will agree that GB05 has been a good truck in general and I’m sure Steve will be pleased if GB14 is as reliable. I’d like to say a thank you to GB05 as it’s the truck that got me and Marshy in touch and it’s also the truck that have given MAN trucks a lot of social media coverage as both the truck and Steve have developed quite a fan base here on the blog. IA blog on GB14 STE will follow soon.