Truck Shite

[willswitchengage]

9 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Nissan make some mid sized trucks which you do see on the continent but they never seem to have been available here.

I think these are Ebro or something - Nissan bought a factory in Spain. They remain pretty popular there as the average age of Spanish vehicles in general is pretty low and they are tolerant of higher polluting old stuff. Talking of which, the European emission standards (and the EPA in America) are a form of protectionism as they make it difficult for new entrants to get a foothold. Isuzu and Ford Otosan being arguably the only foreign manufacturers brave enough to make a Euro6 compliant vehicle.

I think @CreepingJesus this is the snap you're after?

[danthecapriman]

9 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

I think these are Ebro or something - Nissan bought a factory in Spain. They remain pretty popular there as the average age of Spanish vehicles in general is pretty low and they are tolerant of higher polluting old stuff. Talking of which, the European emission standards (and the EPA in America) are a form of protectionism as they make it difficult for new entrants to get a foothold. Isuzu and Ford Otosan being arguably the only foreign manufacturers brave enough to make a Euro6 compliant vehicle.

I think @CreepingJesus this is the snap you're after?

That would make sense.

I know of Ebro, as they used to build Ford and Ford based trucks in Spain. The Thames ET6/7 was built by them almost identical and the Thames Trader was sort of built by them but it’s not identical. I didn’t realise Nissan had acquired them though.

[quicksilver]

7 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

From what I gather Hino’s were/are excellent trucks. Reliable and robust. 
They seem popular in remote places and get used in jungle type environments a lot for earth moving and logging, which must say a lot! 
It’s a pity they were squeezed out of the UK.

It must be quite difficult for newcomers to get a good foot hold in the UK market nowadays as everything is on lease deals rather than bought. So if your not going to/arent able to fight your way into the big lease deals your probably not going to last long. 
When I was at SSE we stopped buying vehicles back around 2008/9ish and went for leases instead. Literally everything from vans right through to artics came through Rygor commercials via a lease company. The only variation were the lease times - 7 years for vans and I think 10 years for trucks. But that kind of thing seems the norm now for every company.

Harris seem to have stopped their Hino sales around 2014 as they didn't have a Euro 6 engine available. They mainly sold to the construction industry and most were tippers or concrete mixers, so 11 years on that kind of hard work with no manufacturer support would have taken their toll and it's very rare to see one now.

[Vantman]

12 hours ago, quicksilver said:

Harris seem to have stopped their Hino sales around 2014 as they didn't have a Euro 6 engine available. They mainly sold to the construction industry and most were tippers or concrete mixers, so 11 years on that kind of hard work with no manufacturer support would have taken their toll and it's very rare to see one now.

There's a few Hino tippers for sale on Autotraders truck section.

[martc]

[martc]

[martc]

[martc]

[martc]

I was watching a video from the 2025 Welland Steam Rally, when I noticed something interesting in the background...

Is this a Belaz? As we discussed many pages ago there was an attempt to import USSR lorries into the UK. Although they came from different factories, to keep things simple they were all badged as Belaz. The most 'successful' were the heavy KrAZ tippers. This orange wagon in the background looks like one to me; could it be an official Belaz import from the '70's?

[martc]

[martc]

I wouldn't mind sampling the goods aboard this, mmmm.

[Metal Guru]

1 hour ago, martc said:

I wouldn't mind sampling the goods aboard this, mmmm.

French Greggs! Who knew?

[willswitchengage]

On 31/08/2025 at 20:03, quicksilver said:

Harris seem to have stopped their Hino sales around 2014 as they didn't have a Euro 6 engine available. They mainly sold to the construction industry and most were tippers or concrete mixers, so 11 years on that kind of hard work with no manufacturer support would have taken their toll and it's very rare to see one now.

Japanese manufacturers have also been slower to shed manual gearboxes than those in Europe for whatever reason. Over here of course practically all trucks these days are automated, in Japan the manual still dominates (albeit with fewer gears - no splitters or multi range). Those Hinos for UK/Ireland I recall got American 16sp manual boxes - so popular with drivers.

[danthecapriman]

3 hours ago, martc said:

I was watching a video from the 2025 Welland Steam Rally, when I noticed something interesting in the background...

Is this a Belaz? As we discussed many pages ago there was an attempt to import USSR lorries into the UK. Although they came from different factories, to keep things simple they were all badged as Belaz. The most 'successful' were the heavy KrAZ tippers. This orange wagon in the background looks like one to me; could it be an official Belaz import from the '70's?

It is a Belaz. I’m not sure where exactly it originally came from but I’m sure it’s one of the ones imported to the UK new as a Belaz. 
They are of course a Kraz 256 but built for export.

A few earthmoving and mining companies bought them here and after that some were sold as used trucks to other companies.

Theres a couple in the background here building the M25.

Here’s my model of one I made earlier this year with a Kraz badge off the front of one!

[Metal Guru]

On 04/09/2025 at 17:19, willswitchengage said:

Japanese manufacturers have also been slower to shed manual gearboxes than those in Europe for whatever reason. Over here of course practically all trucks these days are automated, in Japan the manual still dominates (albeit with fewer gears - no splitters or multi range). Those Hinos for UK/Ireland I recall got American 16sp manual boxes - so popular with drivers.

I would guess the Japanese don’t favour auto boxes in trucks is because they’re obsessed with CVTs. I can’t imagine how bad ( or hilarious) it would be to drive a 44 tonne truck with a CVT .

[New POD]

On 30/08/2025 at 17:28, willswitchengage said:

Another reason I speculate behind the demise of the UK truck manufacturing industry is that it was fragmented and making the wrong products. We effectively made stuff for the UK market only, which was mainly small trucks, very little was exported, and we had dozens of competing manufacturers. Meanwhile on the continent there was one huge market for larger, more powerful vehicles dominated by fewer players - who largely have not changed in almost fifty years. The European manufacturers slowly infiltrated the UK with a better product, whereas we couldn't really export anything with our minnows making what nobody wanted. It's largely the same story with cars, buses and to an extent trains too.

Another bloke retired last week from Leyland Trucks after 47 years.  He started as an apprentice, when it was a small but significant part of British Leyland Motor Corporation.  

He told me that Leland trucks made the profit that paid for all the stupid mistakes made in the car divisions.  

 

[warch]

1 hour ago, New POD said:

Another bloke retired last week from Leyland Trucks after 47 years.  He started as an apprentice, when it was a small but significant part of British Leyland Motor Corporation.  

He told me that Leland trucks made the profit that paid for all the stupid mistakes made in the car divisions.  

 

I think there was a sense of mutual recrimination amongst the various branches of the BL umbrella, so everyone was fiercely loyal to their own company and believed all the others weren’t pulling their weight. It is broadly true that the mass market brands were generally loss making so the profitable ones saw their profits and development budgets siphoned off to prop them up.

They were often literally territorial, I have read an account of a tour of the Bathgate factory (where Leyland tractors were manufactured) by a service engineer (based in a regional depot) during the 1970s. He spotted that the tractors on the line were being assembled with a component wrongly fitted (he knew all about this due to in service failures of this component) and mentioned it to the foreman. The foreman basically told him to sod off and mind his own bloody business. 

That said, Leyland Trucks did survive the break up of BL and the complete decline of the remaining British truck industry and is still a significant manufacturer.

[martc]

[808 Estate]

Scammell Crusader masquerading as a Kenworth.

[willswitchengage]

On 06/09/2025 at 01:01, Metal Guru said:

I would guess the Japanese don’t favour auto boxes in trucks is because they’re obsessed with CVTs. I can’t imagine how bad ( or hilarious) it would be to drive a 44 tonne truck with a CVT .

They get a lot of bad press, maybe just because they're associated with silly DAF 'rubber band' gearboxes. Modern Japaneseish CVTs seem incredibly reliable - look at Toyota's hybrid system for example - and most Japanese American cars seem to have a CVT that pretends it's a normal multi-speed auto. The engineering in them is impressive if you look at how they're made etc.

JCB uses CVTs in its sport tractors, maybe it's popular in other agricultural stuff, dunno who makes the gearboxes though.

[Metal Guru]

2 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

They get a lot of bad press, maybe just because they're associated with silly DAF 'rubber band' gearboxes. Modern Japaneseish CVTs seem incredibly reliable - look at Toyota's hybrid system for example - and most Japanese American cars seem to have a CVT that pretends it's a normal multi-speed auto. The engineering in them is impressive if you look at how they're made etc.

JCB uses CVTs in its sport tractors, maybe it's popular in other agricultural stuff, dunno who makes the gearboxes though.

I had an Outlander PHEV. The CVT was awful. I’ve driven Toyota and Subarus and admittedly the CVTs on those are better but we have a Bini PHEV which is much nicer to drive with a “normal” auto.  I definitely won’t buy another car with a CVT.

[Dyslexic Viking]

5 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

JCB uses CVTs in its sport tractors, maybe it's popular in other agricultural stuff, dunno who makes the gearboxes though.

Car and tractor CVT transmissions are quite different I think. And ZF produces CVT transmissions for many tractor manufacturers now and below is a tractor CVT.

 

[17-Coffees]

This has been sitting in the corner of the yard at work  for a few weeks now...

Got MOT'd and hasn't been picked up yet. 

 

On another note, I've finally started doing tacho calibrations!😦

[Dyslexic Viking]

This channel has a lot of interesting things but has an AI voice as the creator is bad at English.

The story of when the Soviet Union bought several thousand Magirus Deutz trucks.

 

[warch]

22 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

This channel has a lot of interesting things but has an AI voice as the creator is bad at English.

The story of when the Soviet Union bought several thousand Magirus Deutz trucks.

 

Really interesting thanks. Interesting insight into the USSR at the height of the Cold War. Love Magirus trucks.

[Dyslexic Viking]

 

[martc]

This is AEC 6x6 was bought at Ruddington military auctions and fitted with a Jones 12 tonne crane with a 40ft jib and magnet. It was taxed for the road, presumably during daylight hours (looks like there's no lighting); however with no power steering, the weight of thirty foot of jib hanging over the front and an appalling lock because of the driven front axle (even though it was disengaged) made it difficult to drive. A second man was need in the cab to watch the where the jib was in relation to street furniture, bay windows and over head wires. It was last taxed in November 1991.

[martc]

A 24t Foden, with a Gardner 6LX 150 (later replaced with a 180) engine, a Foden 12 speed box and Foden worm and wheel drive axles. Seen here in 1980, I was 21 but looked about 16. The original wood and steel dropside body has been replaced with a second hand aluminium coal body taken from Ford D Series six wheeler. The body floor was lined with plywood and then 1/8 inch steel to withstand the heavy cast iron that it was going to tip several times a day, loaded by the AEC above. It is currently on SORN.

 

[martc]

A one off Terex 33-19 Titan. It could carry 250t and had a 3,300hp diesel electric engine. It was built in 1973 and initially worked carrying iron ore in California before moving to British Columbia (which would have been a sight to see). It was retired in 1991 but still exists as a static display.

[martc]

This LIAZ was photographed this year in Bulgaria but it is Czech registered. Apparently the Reg No format was dropped 20 years ago giving an idea of it's age. There's some speculation about what it's role is - presumably something specialised and difficult to replace hence it's continued use.