Photos of Jordan

Posted on November 1, 2014 by truckbloguk

Sorry, photos from Jordan. The one thing that never ceases to amaze me is who is actually reading the blog around the world. You can keep up with it on the www, twitter or Facebook in any country you can get the internet in. I recently had a message from Mahmoud Al Shogran from Jordan. Mahmoud sent across a few photos of some Mercedes-Benz trucks which seem to be quite popular in Jordan and quite nicely done up too.

The trucks look like they are from Holland and Germany as do some of the trailers. Plenty of lights and bull bars seem to be popular, probably good for stray livestock or camels. Not sure what VOSA would say to the screen full of flags and the like!

Doesn’t matter where in the world you are, but if you have your own or if you just love trucks I’d love to see them all. Email me, ben@truckblog.co.uk or tweet me @truckbloguk and I’ll post your photos of your local trucks. More the better!!

Moody Blues

Posted on October 16, 2014 by truckbloguk

Scania Scania Scania, I know I know, that’s all I seem to put on here these days. Can you blame me when they are producing the best and really the only special editions of any worth by the main manufacturers? The Blue Stream is produced by Scania for the world wide market, it’s available in any chassis configuration with any cab as long as it has a V8 engine. The limited edition is a run of 200 individually numbered trucks.

Both the gorgeous Blue Stream and the UK’s own special edition, the Golden Griffin were released fairly close to one another but there really is no comparison in spec from what I hear and I will say hear. The Golden Griffin is a limited run of just 50 trucks available to the UK market to celebrate 50 years of Scania in the UK. For me the Blue Stream blows it’s Golden cousin out the water. It’s based on celebrating the original baby blue and pink stripes from the original Scania Streamline that was released back in 1991. With the launch of the new R-Streamline Scania got lots of feedback from drivers who fondly remembered the original Streamline, so it was decided they would release a new special edition to honour the original. Nice.

In the north of England on the east coast of Lincolnshire there is a man who goes by the name of Moody, Mick Moody. Many of you will know the name and some will know the man, I have no idea how myself and Mr Moody have become what ever we are but we text and these days talk quite a bit. Now I have been known to be a fair Scania fan but Mr Moody is probably one of the biggest Scania fans that I know (excluding Mr Rigby that is!) and when Mr Moody text me to say he had something special on its way I knew it was going to be a knock-your-socks-off-special, he didn’t disappoint. This particular truck is new and unregistered so it is in need of a good number and among the fields of dreamers I’m sure there are a good number of Scania fans with enough money to snap up edition #5. The truck is a left hand drive R580 Topline, 6×2 mid-lift. The Blue Streams spec will leave you feeling far from blue as each truck comes fitted with the following packages that are usually cost options;
· Lighting package
· Driver package
· Prestige package
· Comfort package
These packages include the following equipment, Air Suspension Including Front Axle, 2 Peddle Opticruise, Retarder, Coffee Maker, Fridge, Premium Radio Inc Sat Nav, Bluetooth, Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Departure, Camara, Limited Edition No 5, Top Bar,Visor Bar,Rear Bar,Durabrites, Far To Many Extras To List,This Truck Is Just Pure Class. So you can be safe in the knowledge that it has virtually every option and upgrade that is possible from the factory. This has since been confirmed by Mr Moody telling me that he can’t find a blank switch cover any where on the dashboard, all the switches are in use with something or another. Have a look at the dash in the photos, you can see that every switch has a symbol and is there fore a use.

If your not a dreamer, or a tyre kicker or a waster or a Volvo lover then perhaps it might just be worth you giving Mr Moody a call and I’m sure he will set you straight. The truck will be expensive but remember what your getting, an awesome drivers favourite, collectible special edition that will hold its value. Please contact 00-Moody on either of the following;
Email: mick@moodyinternational.co.uk
Phone: +44 (0) 7802 225585
Website: www.moodyinternational.co.uk

J777 RDF & J888 RDF

Posted on October 11, 2014 by truckbloguk

You will or won’t know that Richard Payne, Dion Anderson and myself are busy trying to track and trace as many of the original 100 Scania Centurions as possible. Any info please email: centurion@truckblog.co.uk

In my book the two best Centurions were #89 and #90, both belonging to Ralph Davies International. Bother trucks were LHD 143 450hp 6×2 tag axle Topline Streamlines, perfect. You can’t get a better looking wagon! What I really want to do is find out as much about these two as possible when they were in use in the UK. Do you know any of Davies drivers who piloted either of these trucks? How far have either truck travelled across Europe and Asia? Any photos, contact info or information will be highly appreciated.

I know where J777 is now but no one knows where J888 ended up. An acquaintance of mine owned J888 after Davies but we’re not sure where it went after he had it. Again any help would be great. Email me or leave a comment below.

Photos are from Facebook groups but credit to the photographers!

Wilson Wednesday & The Super Subs

Posted on September 10, 2014 by truckbloguk

We’ll start with a real belter from husband and wife team, Mr & Mrs Ramm. Loaded here with a Sugarbeet harvester from Germany. To move a truck with loaded with a harvester measuring 14.00 metres long, 3.30 metres wide and 4.00metres high and weighing 26 tons, takes some specialist equipment, permits and a lot of know how, especially with Europe’s 4 metre height limit, N5 HCW is an 8×4 Scania tractor unit with a 580hp V8 engine hitched up to a wafer bed low loader and a Dave Ramm in the hot seat, perfect.

Not all container jobs are are as simple as opening the rear doors of a metal box. Ian “Slim” Godfrey in Aberdeen this morning with an over height open top container. Slim is driving a Scania this week……yes he is!

Driver Gareth Rowlands seen here on a local drop with a little sweeper imported from the continent. Gareth’s big new V8, N6 HCW, looks awesome no matter what the load, or is it just me??!

Sister truck to the Gareth’s N6 is Geordie’s truck N7 HCW. Loaded with tower crane parts down near Bristol. As you can imagine building a tower crane requires lots of parts and lots of loads. N7 was one of many unloading today to get the crane built. Below we also have Jon Pryke unloading crane parts in X300 HCW.

Office waller, or not, James Cartwright was also on the crane job today in old faithful N200 HCW. Also the last contribution on the crane site is the first super sub of the day, one of Hewicks Haulage Scania’s with another piece of the tower.

Driver Little Terry Alderton and his Scania R480 loaded with some kind of hard-arsed looking machine loaded from deep in Southern Germany up to Warwick. Are all of HC Wilson’s loads colour coded??

Here we have a photo sent by driver Gladys of 3 Wilson trucks and another super sub in the form of a Tasker truck driven by Colin Waters. All 4 are heading down through France to Marseille having loaded in England.

Another Tasker truck is super sub number 3. This one driven by Mike Tasker himself. Another crane part loaded from Germany and also heading for Avonmouth.

Finally we have the last super sub off the bench for Wilson’s, a well known truck here on the blog, the one and only Steve Marsh Express! HC Wilson can cover any type of job including hot shot packing crates to Stoke on Trent. All 3 subbies are tried and tested and very reliable which is a must to keep the professionalism of Wilsons reputation on the right track and keeping those bloomin customers happy! Thanks to all drivers for this weeks photos.

Truckstar 2014: Scania Tanker from H. Van Toorn & Zn

Posted on September 7, 2014 by truckbloguk

Not a lot to say about this one really, apart from you won’t see a cleaner tanker on the road any where, fact. Just look at the chassis photo, not a single spec of dirt or dust any where, simply amazing. I always have a soft spot for a shiny mirror finish tanker and for what ever reason I think they only ever enhance what ever truck is on the front end, so shiny tanker plus gorgeous red Scania = Show Stopper.

Truckstar 2014: Trans Rivage

Posted on September 3, 2014 by truckbloguk

A nice line up in the mirrors when we arrived at Assen. 5 trucks and 5 V8 Scania’s with a total of 2,570hp. The front 3 were all in the show spirit on arrival, holding the trucks on the foot brake and all doing doing burn outs on the wet slippy Tarmac. I was so trans-fixed on the awesome sight and sound of the 3 V8’snotice that I didn’t video them, when clearly I should have!

GOTG Closing Time for Entrants

Posted on August 30, 2014 by truckbloguk

The fat lady is nearly here, the curtain is about to fall, the bell is nearly ringing for all entries to this years Gathering of the Griffin show in Ipswich on the last weekend of September. If you haven’t entered your any age, any state of any Scania then you have just over 24 hours to do so. The official closing time for entries is 2359hrs on Sunday 31st August. Contact details are as follows:

Address: Gathering Of The Griffin, 40 Uplands Way, Diss, Norfolk, IP22 4DF
Telephone: 07903155898
Email: gotg37@hotmail.com

There will be over 110 Scania’s all in one place, a must for any truck fan not just the Griffin lovers. The show is held at the Orwell Crossing Truck stop on the 27th and 28th September. There are categories and prizes for all models and also the coverted best in show prize. You don’t have to be a polish crazy Scania owner to win the prize as it’s all done to the character if the truck. There are also some very very VIP entrants from Scania GB coming too, it’ll be worth a trip to see what they are. Truckblog sponsors the Best 3 Series in show and last years winner Is the 143 at the top owned by Craig of Denny who came down from Scotland. So if you own a Scania of any age or state get it entered and get it to Ipswich. The whole weekend is tipped off by all the trucks leaving the show together, an awesome sight and sound for that matter!!

Last minute entries – CALL or EMAIL now!!
Phone: 07903155898
Email: gotg37@hotmail.com

3, 2, 1……………….

Martyn’s Maiden Mercedes-Benz 2028LS

Posted on August 18, 2014 by truckbloguk

As some of you will by now be aware I started working at Orwell Trucks Mercedes Benz at the beginning of July. Having always worked in transport and l haulage a move into trucks sales seems to have been a good move. When you start at any new workplace it seems there is always a “Martyn Beverly” character some where in the company. Mr Beverly is a quiet man who has learnt his trade from the ground up, he still earns his keep by supplying all the large fleets of East Anglian and beyond with the Mercedes Benz commercial vehicles. The wealth of knowledge Martyn has for MB trucks and vans having worked for Orwell Trucks for over 30 years is amazing. A couple of days sat with Martyn can teach you more than reading any brochure or book or even going on an MB training course. As we clearly have a shared interest in trucks I was keen to let Martyn see some of David Scarff’s MB truck photos, especially ones of local trucks. The above photo was taken by David Scarff outside Fred Archers yard one Saturday morning in the Mid 1980’s. As soon as Martyn saw this photo he said he sold the truck to Archers. Cue the flood gates for plenty more info and all I could want to know about the story of this particular truck. I asked Martyn to write down what he could remember so below is just that…….

With the impending introduction of 38 tonne GCW artics on 5 axles in 1983, operators with fleets of tandem axle trailers and 2 axle units, need a 3 axle tractor unit to comply with the new legislation. Some truck manufacturers had a problem as they nothing developed to meet this requirement. Luckily Mercedes-Benz already produced a suitable vehicle in Europe which could easily be modified to suit the UK market – Enter the 2028LS.

In 1982 Mercedes Benz decided to bring a single vehicle over to the UK to assess its suitability. I saw a picture of it in a Mercedes company brochure under the heading “An intriguing development for the future”. During one of my many meetings with Fred Archer, I told him about this truck and he was very interested as he had seen them whilst on his travels through Eastern Europe. I investigated and found out that this vehicle was at the Mercedes vehicle preparation centre at New Millerdam near Wakefield. I asked asked if I could borrow it and much to my surprise they said yes. Our driver Brian Booth picked the vehicle up and bought it back to Ipswich so we could have a look at the spec as there were no Data Sheets available.
– Left hand drive (enormous steering wheel!)
– L type sleeper cab with twin bunks
– Red orange cab
– Red oxide colour chassis
– Jost sliding 5th wheel
– MB 14.6 litre naturally aspirated V8 engine. 276hp.
– Fuller roadranger constant mesh 13 speed gearbox. 4 speed + range change + splitter on top 4 gears and a crawler. Very unusual as it would have normally been a ZF Ecosplit.
– 12R x 22.5 tyres
– Centre axle permanently steered with air suspension above a steel spring load transfer device.
– Rear axle. Hub reduction, full four bag air suspension with in cab level control
– GVW was 20,330kg
– 3,750mm outer axle spread – the prop shaft was as thick as a telegraph pole!

I took the vehicle down to Fred (Archer) and hitched it onto one of his trailers and we went for an extensive road test around Ipswich, after which Fred definitely wanted to buy it – if the price was right of course! I went away and got the numbers sorted and Fred ordered the vehicle. No records exist but I reckon it was around £30,000. This truck was very unique as it was the first of this model ever to be sold in England.

To prepare the vehicle we fitted the snorkel front air intake, a radio, cab heater, rear wings, alloy cat walk / fuel tank (from GB Engineering in Wisbech), sun visor, full chassis and cab paint and finally it was sign written by Rod Chapple using a good old brush and paint. When finished and delivered to Fred we did a photo shoot with one of his trailers all around Martlesham Heath and pictures were taken off the bridge over the A12. The driver was a chap called Mick Dade who had worked for Fred archer for some time (Mick Dade eventually worked for IST in Harwich as Transport Manager.

You can’t ask for a better write up than that all off the back of one photo. The other photos here are all copyright of Martyn Beverly and as ever please respect the copyright. Fred archer must have been impressed with the big German as I found another David Scarff photo of an A reg MB 2028, only visible differences being it’s right hand drive and no snorkel!

There are a few more old photos in the archives so you never know we might be able to get a few more snippets of the good old days from Martyn and Orwell Trucks back catalogue. Off you go driver, happy trucking……….

New MAN in Marshy’s Life

Posted on August 15, 2014 by truckbloguk

Your favourite international express light haulage expert, Steve Marsh Express, has been a little quiet of late I know but that’s partially down to the fact there is a new vehicle in production as a replacement for the little legend that is GB05 STE. The new truck is another MAN TGL 12.250 with a euroliner body. The truck has been fitted with a Kuda high roof cab conversion as Marshy likes maximum space in the cab, due to being rather a tall man and also sometimes he can be away for a couple of weeks at a time. As you’d expect for any owner driver machine it is a top of the range machine. A nice set of factory fit Speedline alloy wheels, twin long range fuel tanks, built in TV aerial, a nice sun visor with a pair of spot lights in, Dhollandia slider tailift, 12 speed auto with manual overide, rear air suspension, sleeping well cab cooler, xenon headlights, plenty of extras!! The visor also came from Kuda but was made by a firm from Finland by the name of www.vepro.fi it’s worth a look. No doubt we will be seeing a lot of this truck in the future.

Flat Tops are Back!

Posted on August 10, 2014 by truckbloguk

No, no don’t start heading to your nearest barbers, I don’t mean the hair cut of choice for the American Marine, but the truck cab type. Flat tops were top dog in the cab world back in the 80’s before the space cabs, Toplines and Globetrotters took over. As a boy growing up in the 80’s flat tops were my bread and butter, a flat top 143, now when I mean flat top I mean an original Toplines in the same statement, basically anything pre being able to stand up and put your trousers on, which we all take for granted these days.

These days the norm (in Europe anyway) is a Topline, a Globetrotter XL, a Super Space Cab or even the awesome Gigaspace and I think they have become so common place the delight of a flat top cab has been totally forgotten……this is of course until our Dutch and European cousins have turned it into a retro trucking marvel! At the best truck show in the world this year, or Truckstar Festival to those who haven’t been, it was a pleasure to see the flat tops making a strong come back. The difference now in 2014 is that the flat tops are probably still slightly bigger than the originals, but then again everything is bigger than it used to be (Mrs TB will disagree). Most of the trucks at Assen were Scania’s and a few Volvo’s. The Scania still comes in the original proper standard sleeper, I think it’s still called an R-cab and also the seemingly more popular Hi-line which according to the Scania website, gives you an extra 30cm headroom over the standard R-cab sleeper.

When we all think of Volvo’s new FH series we all immediately think Globetrotter, Globetrotter, Globetrotter, how many of you even realised you can still have a standard flat top sleeper can just like the delightful old F10’s and F12’s. Well you can and the couple of examples you can see here are just awesome. Looking at them it’s so easy to realise that we have forgotten about the flat top. Then again perhaps because the big cabs are so common place on sleeper cabbed trucks these days that we (it wasn’t just me who noticed them at Truckstar!) were surprised back into realising how cool and retro the modern flat tops are. Then again anything that has been customised by the Dutch looks cool and enviable to us English. Just a side note people, hardly any shiny alloy wheels, painted wheels is still the way forward.

By now you have realised that you need to be buying a flat top to be in with the gang. It really didn’t take much walking about at Assen for this to sink in, but to achieve perfection it seems that you have to select the chassis with a twin wheel tag. Sorry you must excuse me my European cousins, it’s not a twin wheel tag, you must call it (please read in a Dutch accent!) how do you say “rear bogie lift”. Phrase of the show. A flat top cab with rear bogie lift is the best looking carsch you could see this year. Just to convince you once and for all just have a look at the red beastie below from Belgium. Scania fan or not you have to admit she looks rather well. Hi-line cab, painted wheels, roof rack, straight pipe exhausts, rear bogie lift and of course a retro (3 series in this case) sun visor. Why on earth is the 3 series visor not offered by Scania as a standard fit option??

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