The Making of an Airbrushed Atego

Posted on April 11, 2012 by truckbloguk

Have you ever wondered about having a bit of a customised truck? Something with a bit more than just a coat of white paint? Yea I did too once, but I wouldn’t do it again. Really I wouldn’t. I was doing well with my company and I doubled the fleet size to 2 trucks! I wanted to have the shiny wheeled slightly customised truck so it would stand out from the crowd. It started with the plain white Mercedes Atego that you see above. I spotted it on the A12 on my way back to Braintree one day. It was on it’s way from the dock to the bodybuilders, Colliers Truck Builders of Maldon (Essex) on the back of a Brit European truck. As it goes I went back and found the truck parked up for the night near Maldon, the driver let me even climb up and sit in it!

Here she is nearly finished, as you can see its all plain factory colours, so next it’s off to the paint shop. I had always wanted the truck to be metallic blue, but I still had no real idea of what artwork i’d have painted on. I found an airbrush artist in Colchester called Simon. Simon had painted artwork on a few trucks, some of you may remember a fleet of blue DAF’s that used to do container work I think, that had airbrushing on. I had a few meetings with Simon about what we could do. I had already wanted a few ladies painted on the truck – Why? Coz I was a young man! So I had to painstakingly find a few pictures of some attractive women, god that was a difficult job!! that was one side sorted. For the other side Simon had suggested some sort of sea/sky theme due to the blue. I had also wanted to only use white paint for the artwork as I’m not a fan of a million colours on a truck, although some trucks still look amazing (Coles & Sons that is!). Simon showed me some metallic fish artwork that I actually liked the look of. They were robot like fish that were originally done in silvers as they were supposed to be made of metal. The artist’s name was Soroyama.

Next it just left the 2 front corner panels of the truck which Simon suggested could again be anything, I only came up with a CD cover I had, the other side was left to Simon. All in all it took 2 weeks to complete the whole painting exercise. As you can see Simon worked round the whole cab of the Atego panel by panel. I stood and watched for a while and I was just totally transfixed, watching stroke by stroke as the artwork appeared before my eyes!

The front panel with the big shark bursting through was obviously going to get plenty of chips, even with 3 coats of lacquer. To get over this for shows and what ever else, I had a second front panel made up and painted and I still have it now. The only bugger is, it’s bubble wrapped in the top of the garage! But at least I still have part of the truck. So how did it all turn out?…….

It’s quite a job to get the whole thing sorted. Finding a paintshop willing to spray the truck, and keep it in a dust free workshop while the artwork is applied, then add a few coats of laquer. Lucky for me Simon used his contacts and this was sorted. Trying to think up pictures for each panel was a total headache, but in the end the only bit I wasn’t that happy with was the front corner panel with the starfish. The rest was as I hoped for, including the planets and stars on the driver side. I loved it.

More importantly was it worth it? It’s a cost that is a gamble, will you ever earn back what it cost to have your truck painted? I think it cost me around £2,000 for the artwork including the laquer. Lucky for me at the time I could afford it, but I was even luckier to get some work that paid more than double what it cost me to have done. I was at a regular customer of mine and they had a visitor who loved the little airbrushed Atego and I ended up doing a lot of work over the next few weeks that easliy covered the cost of the artwork and I wouldn’t have got the job if it wasn’t for the artwork. Other than that having such a truck means lots and lots of people taking photo’s but better than that at some regular delivery points it meant the unloaders wanted to chat and talk to you about the truck. In turn this lead to being able to jump a certain amount of unloading queue’s, a direct result of having the artwork done. All in all I would reccomend doing it once, but after that? I don’t think so. Great truck though, it did earn it’s keep and more all due to it’s artwork.

If you’ve seen this truck recently or you have a photo of it any where i’d love to see it, so please email me a copy; ben@truckblog.co.uk

A Fond Farewell to H.C. Wilson Transport

Posted on April 1, 2012 by truckbloguk

I’m back! I know I haven’t been on here much in the last week but that is mainly due to the news that it has been my last week at H.C. Wilson Transport. I have been offered a new job and a new challenge, a little closer to home. It will soon become clear who I will be working for from tomorrow. Until then i just wanted to say a huge thank you to all at Wilson’s and especially to GW and SW for everything they have done for me in the last 4 years I have been there. I just wanted to leave a small photographic tribute to a professional company that clearly have the ability to change with the times and keep the wheel of international abnormal transport turning.

Yesterday (Saturday) was my last morning. We had a busy week last week and I had a trainee to look after, so as I was working the Saturday, it made sense to save the desk clearing exercise for the weekend rather than try and do it on a busy Friday afternoon. I had one last wander round the yard and took some pics as my fond farewell (careful i’m getting a dry throat!). I’m not going to say to much more, but I will say one more last big Thank You to all at Wilsons. I’m sure we’ll meet again some sunny day………

You have to agree the big red Scania’s are quite photogenic. I have avoided putting to much Wilson stuff on the blog as it would be very easy to flood the blog with stuff about the company I am working for. From now on I can freely put on here what I like without worrying about doing to much Wilson! In fact my lovely wife has suggested that we do a “Wilson Wednesday”, so for any of you Wilson drivers or spotters, if you want to text me or email me your weekly Wilson photos, we can do a regular “Wilson Wednesday” feature. My email is; ben@truckblog.co.uk

As a final farewell, as one last request and as an ode to the happyiest, constantly cheery, always tanned, cake loving, driver you’d be lucky enough to meet, Mr Geoff Tarbun, I’ll end with his DAF, WIL 2219.

Out & About with Leicester

Posted on March 25, 2012 by truckbloguk

If you go down to the woods today……actually if you had gone between Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire and Corby, Northamptonshire last Sunday you would have been in for a VERY big surprise! In the form of a Leicester Heavy Haulage 8×4 680hp MAN TGX, carrying a 20ML x 6MW x 6.2MH and weighing in at 29,000 kg. For those of you outside the UK, our maximum dimensions for a vehicle are 5M wide and 5M high. So in order to move such a large piece of cargo we have to apply for a special route from the Government that should take you from start to finish missing as many low or narrow obstacles, but this isn’t always the case as you will find out reading this. There are also plenty of wires across our roads, low trees and of course the UK’s love of signposts and street furniture means that along with Police and private escorts they are a convoy of other vehicles on the job, including telephone company vans, electricity vans and council vans to name but a few and also plenty of folk on foot taking photos and hoping their house’s won’t get hit!

For the rest of the story I will hand you over to Paul Rodwell from Leicester Heavy Haulage;

There were a lot of issues with the route due to the sheer size of the piece. It took us 5 months to find a route as the 2 that we were supplied with by the Police (the ones going to be used and cancelled a couple of days before) were either going to hit a bridge or electrocute the driver. I had to drive the route with a tree surgeon as we needed a large amount of branches to be cut along the journey.

The journey started at 6.30am on Sunday with the piece loaded onto one of our wafer bed Nooteboom Low Loaders with the extra beam section slotted in to accommodate the length of the load (17m along the bottom / 20m including the cone). The main part of the route followed the A17, A52 and A15 until Bourne and then veered off cross country to a place called Carlby. In Carlby we had to pay a farm machinery dealer to use their courtyard on Sunday to lift the Silo from the Low Loader onto the back of a 5 Axle 850mm deck height, steerable, Nooteboom semi low loader for the second leg of the journey.

This is due to the original Low Loader being too long to negotiate a very tight left turn in the village of Great Casterton, near Stamford. Once we had made this turn the load then had to cross over the A1 and travel towards Rutland Water. The route then ran through the countryside alongside Rutland Water via North Luffenham and Edith Weston through to the A47 where we turned East and then South onto the A43. Due to the load now being 7.03m high on the Semi Low Loader we then had to leave the A43 and travel through a very narrow village called Bulwick in Northamptonshire.

We had to arrange a leaflet drop in this village and speak to locals to ask them to keep the road clear of cars as at some points along the main street we were only inches away from the houses on either side.

We then got back on the A43 and arrived at site at 8.30pm that night. The whole thing was escorted by ourselves, Lincolnshire Police, BT Openreach and Western Power. We had to have over 100 electrical lines either isolated (turned off) or lifted to allow us to get through. The Silo is now installed and is to be used to hold 250 tonnes of grain for the manufacture of animal feed.

The whole thing was such a big deal for everyone and it involved so many people in one way or another that it even made the local BBC News. Click the link HERE to see the news clip.

Have you got a big / interesting / odd / unique load that you or your company have carried?? Send photos and details to me at; ben@truckblog.co.uk

Lets Play Who’s That Owner Driver….

Posted on March 14, 2012 by truckbloguk

After my recent uneventful trip to Douvres I only saw a few British trucks coming home on a Saturday morning. Two of the trucks were what looked like Owner Driver or small hauliers, most likely O/D’s I think. Both were driving DAF Super Space Cabs of different vintages. Do any of you know who they are? Have you seen them before? Put your answers on a post card or better still leave me a comment or even better than that email ; ben@truckblog.co.uk any help would be much appreciated. I’d like to congratulate both of these dying breed with a truckblog sticker to thank them for keeping the legendary British Owner Drivers reputation alive!!

Cotton Picked DAF

Posted on March 11, 2012 by truckbloguk

This very very tidy DAF CF made a visit to H.C. Wilsons yard a couple of weeks back. I wanted to share it with you as it rather caught my eye as being a specialist bit of kit, hand picked for its daily tasks. These daily tasks usually involve deliveries of machinery to small sites and farms, so the 3 steering axles have made the drivers job a whole lot easier than his old single steer vehicle. The truck belongs to Cotton Transport of Derbyshire and the driver was only to happy for me to take a photo of his new steed. The truck is a DAF CF with the big 480hp engine. Fitted with a big crane behind the cab, chassis lockers, and beaver tail and flat top hydraulic rear ramps. Cotton clearly know what they are doing when it comes to getting spec right. All that is left to come is the addition of a new drag trailer, which might even have been delivered by now, other than that keep your eyes peeled, its worth a look.

Exit Douvres….

Posted on March 4, 2012 by truckbloguk

….It seems all the Brits finally have! Having friends in high places can be handy some times. A last minute call and I was off to Dover and Calais on Saturday morning (yesterday). The purpose of the trip?? not sure really just a bit of a boys day out and also a free P&O Ferries ticket helped. Saturday mornings aren’t great for truck spotting on either side of the channel, unless you are a lover Eastern European trucks, not a lot else really. A few Greeks (one above), a Portuguese version of Steve Marsh, a Mallorcan Volvo and some very disheveled Seafrance boats! Also not to mention that All 4 Trucks must have had half the fleet of an ex Hungarian State owned company, who now run yellow and blue trucks instead of green and yellow! There must have been 100 of them if not more.

Once back in Dover there were only a handful (and no more) of British trucks arriving back on the lunchtime boats. So few in fact I will put them all on here. The best part of the spotting was the new exit lane from the Port for those heading for the M20. It comes out from the Port towards the round about, but just before it bears left round the back of the BP garage and under Jubilee Way, then out to join the road towards the M20 through Dover. The main idea being that it means all traffic exiting the port can keep moving and not have to get caught waiting at the roundabout. But it means that you can stand next to the new concrete wall next to the slip road and get a great view as the trucks are accelerating out of the Port. If you know the area you can probably picture what i’m talking about. Pity they haven’t built a windbreak from the channel wind though!!

First up is this red DAF, pulling a plain blue curtainsider. Looks quite like an owner driver to me, do you know who’s it is?? Email me, ben@truckblog.co.uk or leave a comment below. It’s relatively new as it’s got a Mont Blanc Euro 5 sticker in the windscreen.

Next is Sims Worldwide Logistics from Manchester. A fair trek home on a Saturday afternoon, but i’m sure the Merc will make it a comfortable ride for the driver.

A Brinor subbie, with a trailer that should be next of the refurb list! More curtain patches than a curtain shop, very loose back doors and wheels with more rust than bag of rusty nails! Anyone know about the MAN and the subbie??

This DAF looks like another well travelled owner driver. But could be a tricky one to work out; RHD, Dutch plates and UK – Swiss written on the trailer. Wheel trims, trailer toolbox, spare wheel carrier and bumper mudflap, well loved by the looks of it. Actually it has that classic long distance owner driver feel……in my opinion any way!

A very corporate but smart Interdean silver Mercedes drawbar. A light blue Scania horsebox? Yep your right, Parkers it is. Not one of the customised ones, but none the less, i’m sure it works just as hard. Note the additional lashing rings under the front bumper. Are these because its a horsebox or because the front grill has spotlights fitted?? Leave your thoughts below.

Saw a couple of PTM International trucks throughout the day, but I only snapped this one. Does any one else get the feeling that DAF’s are the UK international hauliers truck of choice???

Finally under the rear outdoor deck on the Pride of Britain, was this well know Scottish haulier, Scotlee. The big ScotsMAN sitting quietly in front of the ever humming fridge unit.

So that was my spotting day out. Thoroughly enjoyable and I have found some good spots to get some snaps, but I can’t help but feel that i’m at least 20 years to late!!

More Un-Seen Blasts from The Past from The Cannon

Posted on February 24, 2012 by truckbloguk

……Peter Cannon that is, of Astran fame. Peter has been sending through a few of his favourite photo’s from his years at Astran.

Some of you will recognise this photo. Taken in Pakistan on the far side of the Khyber Pass, another version of this photo, taken a bit to the left, features in the Astran almanack, The Long Haul Pioneers. If you haven’t already bought one, you do need a copy so get buying. Speaking of the Khyber Pass, here is a great shot of the perfect place for bandito’s to hide!

While we’re on the Pakistani tourism desk, this is a great shot of what was then called the Attock Bridge. Being the inquisitive chap that I am, I got onto the Google Map and finally found the bridge. These days its now called The Old Bridge as there is a new modern bridge to cope with the greater flow of traffic I guess.

Next in the unseen archive is Astran driver John Frost, shovel in hand, having just fitted the snow chains to one of the pink ladies. I’m not to sure where this is, but i’m sure some of you will know. **28/02/12 – Admin: I have since learned that this is actually one of Gordon Pearces photos.**

These 3 photos are all of AMY 147H, Peter’s regular truck. All taken at various places across Turkey. A hard working girl was AMY, she certainly got around and did her bit to get Astran the name they achieved. Not having my copy of LHP to hand, I think I am right in saying she was the first Astran truck to go to Pakistan. I’ll check that when I get home!
Perhaps AMY 147H, a Scania 110, is a good candidate for the next model in the Astran series of Tekno models?? If you agree, leave a comment below. In fact if you have a suggestion for the next model in the series leave your ideas in the comments box and i’ll make sure Kevin at Astran gets to see them all.
Thanks again to Peter Cannon for the photo’s hopefully there will be more to come. If you have any of your own photos you want to share on the blog, then email me at ben@truckblog.co.uk

Big CAT’s & Big V8’s

Posted on January 31, 2012 by truckbloguk

Those lovely yellow CAT machines need a good start in life, just like any little kitten does, so the boys at Ascroft Transport from Tarleton, Lancashire only use the best trucks to get them delivered. The latest edition to the fleet are 2 brand new identical Scania R560 V8’s, both are 6×2 midlifts with the Topline cab and factory fitted airhorns. The trucks have also been jazzed up with a visit to Kelsa to fited out with no less than 4 light bars. The black Scania’s have a rear facing Kelsa Bakbar and front facing Lobar, Visorbar and Beaconbars, all of which can be found on the Kelsa website for what ever your make of truck. As it goes Kelsa do sell to countries outside the UK, so ask them for a price to ship to where ever you are.

Ascroft run a mainly Scania fleet, but also have Volvo and DAF too. Usually the fleet colour is blue, but due to contractual agreements, a few trucks are operated in CAT’s black and yellow colours. Running in a top customers colours is fine untill you want to reload from your customers competitors, then I guess it can be a little tricky. I’m not sure if CAT signed up to have the V8 Scania’s pulling their machines but at least the V8’s do purrrr along, so it probably just adds extra feline effect!!

DAF XT is Born – NOT Photoshopped

Posted on January 18, 2012 by truckbloguk

We’ve all seen the photo-shopped versions of a bonneted DAF, mostly the white one pulling a fridge trailer. In all honesty it doesn’t look to silly, for a few days I think it did get people wondering whether it was real or not. But now Dutch transport company A. Jansen BV, who are clearly huge fan’s of their natively built DAF trucks, have produced a real life bonneted DAF and have named it the DAF XT. I’m sure over the next few months this truck will make it to your regular truck magazine. On Jansen’s own website, there is this small explanation in the News section;

“Recently, A. Jansen B.V. on the occasion of its 40 anniversary presented a new car: the XT. This special model in cooperation with DAF dealer de Burgh in Eindhoven developed and produced. The XT, such as this implementation in the market will go (FTT XF type 105.460), is the successor of the legendary NAT models of DAF. The two new DAF XT’s battery from the end of February 2012 will abandon the fleet of A. Jansen B.V. and so also appeared on the Dutch roads.”

You can work out from the slightly dodgy translation, that there are now 2 of these real life DAF XT’s. The trucks have been produced to celebrate Jansen BV’s 40th Anniversary, just imagine what could happen when they reach the big 50!! Keep your eye’s peeled on the press, as I say i’m sure it will be making a lot or appearances. What’s your first impression? Is it like mine; The grill is too chunky, then email me; ben@truckblog.co.uk or you can leave a comment, or these day’s you can even get me on Twitter, @truckbloguk amazing stuff! Not sure who’s photo’s these are but if you let me know I can credit you. I would also like to say a big thank you to Graham Wilson for informing me of the DAF’s existence.

Manton European Freight Part 8

Posted on January 8, 2012 by truckbloguk

Notice how I have deleted the Freezer part out of the title? That’s because this blog is(Part 8.) not just about Manton’s Freezer trucks. For those of you who don’t know or haven’t read the previous 7 parts. Manton’s were a family firm from Yorkshire who ran a very smart fleet of mainly Scania’s across Europe delivering all types of egg product’s, mainly in frozen powder form. If you search in the search bar to the right for Manton, you should bring up the previous blog’s. This particular part of the series is a bit of a bumper edition. Starting with the elusive and rather fetching Renault Magnum…….

One thing I have not asked Mr Manton is whether this Magnum was the one and only on the fleet? Can you help? I know there was a Magnum, but by the serious lack of photographic evidence, there can’t have been more than a few if that. From the photo we can see it is an “M” reg which means it was new in 1994, according to the DVLA it was first registered on 8th August 1994 and it has not been taxed since 31st November 2006. I have no idea what horse power it was although 385hp were popular I think a 4??hp of some sort would be more likely. The other interesting thing about this truck is it’s a Tag axle. This makes it really quite a rare beast, not just for Manton, but in general. If you know any more about this truck in Manton guise or in it’s afterlife if it had one, please email me or leave a comment. This photo was taken in Spain or Italy.

Another photo of the Magnum, pulling a tanker, a surprise to me too! I had no idea that there was a tanker fleet too. Mr Manton tell’s me; “The tankers were carrying liquid egg to North Italy, then we used to reload apple juice ex Gleisdorf in Austria to Bridgewater“. Below is another photo of one of the tanker fleet. This time a very tidy 20ft tank-tainer on a 30ft skelly trailer being pulled by a twin wheel tag axle flat top 3 series Scania. Brilliant.

The next photo is of a 143 and a 113 Scania loading fruit in Southern Spain for the UK.

Next up a classic trio of V8’s waiting to leave the UK for sunnier shores.

What a line up! How on earth would you pick which one of the 3 legendary V8’s you’d want to drive for a run to the sun?! Mr Manton said; “I found out where the 3 truck’s were….. Plymouth!! All waiting to ship out to Santander, loaded with seed potatoes from Scotland, for delivery to McCains factory in Burgos, Spain. We did a lot of these, and on arrival at the factory, you were then sent to 3 or 4 deliveries to farms around N.Spain.” The 143 Topline Scania in the middle, K414 KNW, is actually the truck that started this whole 8-Part-and-counting story. I spotted this truck in the 1990’s on my local Industrial Estate in Braintree, Essex. To read Part 1 of the story just click HERE.

Last in this mammoth Christmas Annual sized edition of the Manton story, is this photo of a Manton tilt. Another first for my Manton Knowledge book, along with the tankers. This photo was accompanied by this text; “I found this one, of one of our tilts. One of the first 13.6 metre tilts in the UK. We used to run plastic to rome and reload at the same place with plastic bags.”

Thanks to Dave Manton for his continued photo hunt for us all to enjoy. Hopefully the story will continue, so if you have anything to add please email me; ben@truckblog.co.uk or leave a comment. Also do you know of and ex Manton driver by the name of Graham “Walter” Lavington? I am reliably told he has a huge collection of Manton photo’s!!

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