Day cab Crusader....hardcore! Must have felt like a king to have Marathon after that ...even if it probably broke down a lot more! You guys are true transport legends. Respect to you all👍👍😎
If you think the marathon was unreliable, you never drove one, and they flew, volvo brought out the 290 because of the marathon, now they were unreliable!, everyone who never drove the motors back then think, that volvo and scania were the best thing since sliced bread, truth is the 86,at 32ton was no match for a mandator or ERF, even a fiberglass cab Atkinson with a 220 Cummins and a fuller was far a better motor, the 88 that everyone dribbles over was at 32ton under its design waight, and a marathon flew past it!, nobody wants to remember that the scania 80 crank was so bad that there was a company who came round and ground the big ends with the crank still in the engine!, a Swedish lorry that had a air throttle that would freeze up! Yes I worked on all these motors, a lot of drivers just didn't want to drive anything British,
I worked with Dave on BRS Overland . He was the best man at one of my weddings. The other guy in the photo is Keith Shirley. Other BRS drivers featured in the video are Bill Thomas, Terry Taylor and Bob Howes. The Leyland Marathons were absolute rubbish and were always breaking down but because the orginal contract was to supply parts to the British Leyland plant in Tehran we had to drive British Leyland trucks. The unit weighed 11 tonnes because its Middle Eastern spec and when coupled to a trailer with a 20 ton cap load we were often overweight. If BRS had purchased reliable European truck like Scania, Daf or Volvo maybe BRS Overland Iran would have stayed in business longer. Before joining BRS I had my own truck .. a Daf 2800 which I ran to the Middle East for many years and had no problem whatsoever. On my first trip with BRS I broke down at Dover !!
There's truck drivers and There's these guys.. complete respect to all the uk drivers that drove to the middle east and ive heard storys even China... is this true?.. anyway these guys are legends...
I nearly bought a brand new Middle East Spec 6x4 in 75/76 for £8,000 But common sense prevailed and I bought a year old LHD v10 320bhp Merc for £12,000 Thank god I didn't buy the Marathon
no phones sat navs no 🛰 trackers. Just a map and a sense of direction. Basic mechanics and you was off. must of been a great way of life. the middle east job was A very short lived time in trucking history. early days driving straight there over land