Did you mention the AEC company ….. AEC was in existence from 1912 to 1979. To remind everyone, they built London’s omnibuses for 67 years. They also pioneered the development of the straight-six Diesel engine, in collaboration with RICARDO performance tuning. AEC engines started under all conditions without heater-plugs to assist. Their heavy duty MATADOR army lorry was very necessary for moving large loads and one of their AMOURED COMMAND VEHICLES captured after the retreat from Dunkirk was used personally by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The AEC MANDATOR V8 was the first to commercial to experiment with 8 cylinder engines ❤
Fascinating video. May father (Bill Greenwood) served his apprenticeship at Foden Trucks and stayed there his entire working life. Same story with my grandfather (Ralph Broad) who worked on steam vehicles/traction engines. He lost an eye at work and was offered financial compensation of a job for life. He chose the latter. I worked there myself from 1978-1980 at which point they went into receivership and were then taken over by Paccar. The enormous factory including machine shops, foundry, tool shop, stores, production line, offices etc are now, sadly, a new housing estate.
No way they could compete with euro truck makers when they were subsidised , that was not a level playing field , there should have been import duties against subsidised manufacturers , foreign imports were not that great but they were cheap.
@@davezoom2682 But sadly it was all for nothing as blinkered management and government interference started to take its toll, Leyland was the strongest company of them all back then, until government interference in an industry they knew little about - and cared for even less with garnering of votes forced them into moves the industry DIDNT want, today it is little known that DAF were a struggling post war Dutch importation garage who assembled knocked down Leylands in kit form built in and sent from Leylands, but with financial aid from THEIR government, and stultifying, almost criminal interference from ours forcing them to become part of "British Leyland" THEN syphoning off all its profits and development funds just to try to keep the "car" divison afloat.....until eventually selling them off at a cut price loss......to its biggest foreign SUB CONTRACTOR.....guess who now owned who, and Daf then promptly rubbed the salt into the humiliation - by making Leyland a sub contractor building THEIR vehicles !....As you said Foden was then forced to compete with cut price foreign owned vehicles. all while just up the road at the founders SONS place - Edwin Richard FODEN in Middlewhich, the government was secretly conspiring to sell off ERF to MAN in Germany. its always made me wonder if the amount of greasy back handers equalled the misery inflicted on the now redundant workforces of two proud Cheshire towns .of course they were ALL willingly simply doing the EU's bidding for its diktat of stripping Britain of ANY manufacturing capabilities. just as they did to the steel industry !
@@davezoom2682all the foreign trucks were easier on the driver. The British trucks were a health hazard to drive. It was a happy day for me when I got out of an Atki Borderer and into a Volvo F88. I drove some horrific shite previous to that. Thames Trader, Guy Warrior, Austin FG to name just a few.
I drove and worked on mostly Foden and ERF , at least they would stop unlike volvo's , I got hit up the ass three times on the A5 in Derbyshire , by f86 , A ERF with a gardner straight 8 and a fuller 9 speed was a pleasure to drive . I dispised Leyland Commer and effing Bedford , pos , I fixed quite a few Volvo that the injector pump fell off , and ir cooled magirus. deutch that blew the oil heater and dumped all the engine oil on the road .
The machinery and engineering used to make the lorry parts is absolutely astounding. And dont forget to keep your cap on !! Good stuff in all regards. Cheers, mate.
A brilliant film thanks for uploading. Progress until 1980 then Margaret & the lads fucked it up. A lot of these old buses and lorry's were brought from scrapyards & re-used by people to live in. Albions, Bristols, Leylands & Bedfords were a common sight on lots of parkups & sites. Mostly all gone now, sad.
My grandfather’s days he had is own garage back then he was a fitter and turner by trade my father worked in a cart horse stables when he was younger but he and my uncles were taught to drive my grandfather cars model T Ford and a Morris bullnose I passed my test in my dad’s Austin 1300 I now drive a Vauxhall Astra diesel the difference it power and fuel economy is what has improved a lot to me my 7y old granddaughter will probably be driving an electric car when she passes her driving test
I am at the same time so proud of what British engineering and transport was in this country and sad that greed for profit broke us apart from Thatcher onwards.
The railway can compete and win with laden waggons to the point of use or embarkation when they lay the tracks. But sometimes it was already done in the 19th century.
Unfortunately a downturn in the market in the early 70s seems to have hit Foden hard, tragically for the firm it came along just as an expansion of the site was being done. They struggled on but ended up being absorbed and no longer exist. A regrettably familiar fate of many a British manufacturer, global events don't seem to favour us all that much.
I live in the US now and been asked many times where did the term lorry come from ,i can only think its from locomotive on road ? Any answers anyone !!😊
Whenever I watch this type of video I never see a mention of Seddon / Seddon Atkinson. I worked there in Oldham / Shaw for 14 years, from 1968 to 1982. Why don't they get a mention ?
What were the union problems at these companies that caused them to disappear? Or aircraft manuacturers De Havilland, Hawker Siddeley, Bristol, Avro, Handley Page, Saunders Roe, Supermarine................? Or chemical companies such as ICI, Courtaulds Or machine toolcompanies Alfred Herbert, Cincinnatti Millacron, John Brown Motorbikes, Triumph, Norton, Ariel, Matchless, AJS........ Clothing industry Computer industry Look in the mirror, you, the British, are the problem. Unable to run large companies successfuly against overseas competition, so you blame the lefty unions. Well just look at the UK car industry, Prior to Covid it had reached heights of production not seen in over 40 years, the biggest exporter of manufactured good. One thing has changed, they are now all foreign owned, one thing hasn't, the same unionised workforce is still there.ru@@bobbylee2853
The switch from manufacturing to money laundering via our financial institutions destroyed all our industry for the sake of greed. The lorries, cars, aircraft, aerospace, ships and most if not all of our other major industries. Why invest in the UK when you can scam a nation abroad elsewhere via stocks and shares, money markets, off shore trusts and laundering. They were only ever there for the common man when it made them money, always was always will be.
Great amazing haven’t seen soo many of those behind the rd. really since 1980s. When old Seddon Atkinson trucks were about. And all the old Coma Vans sliding door laundry vans bread vans lol. But the weird porno music track was strange
I was forced by poverty to own some elderly British lorry’s, but only if fitted with a Cummins, ex fleet day cabs kipping across the seats, mean as cat shit ever last one of them, 😂
The word` lurry` used to be a verb meaning to pull or tug something. This gradually changed to mean the vehicle itself. Lurry was still used in the north of England in the 1920s newspapers and remained in speech up to the 1950s. A lurry would be a horse drawn vehicle as opposed to a motor lurry.
Very sad that you choose Lord Poof to start this video, there are countless other better informed historians able to do a far more interesting take on the subject. Daddy left him a shed load of money, privilage & time to buy tons of old bangers, hardly hard work.
British trucks were never driver friendly imagine atkinson were still.making wooden cabbed vehicles in early 1970,with no heater to keep you warm british trucks were made for haulage bosses not for drivers who would sleep on wooden planks with a blanket over them for 10shillings night out money then along came volvo F88 the shed on wheels as we called it ,and scania we could not believe the refinement in these vehicles which were better work spaces for drivers british truck makers did.try to compete but to late i for one ex truck driver was glad to finish my driving career on a continental truck which were superior in every way to fodens,ERF,seddons;Atkinson,Leylands,scammels and the rest of british trucks the. People who praise them were not the ones who.had to make a living out of them they.were Crap .😢
Never heard so much claptrap... Horses not environmentally friendly... Stopping and starting a horse more difficult than stopping and starting a motor vehicle. As for the problem of Horses cropping everywhere.. that stuff is great for your gardens.. it's a perfect fertiliser.. The crappie spewing out of lorries, is of no use to anyone and pollutes everywhere that vehicle goes.. Oh and the bit about disposing of dead horses... are you serious... a dead horse can produce glue and what parts you cannot repurpose, will bio degrade... Just look at the huge piles of scrapped vehicles, littering the country.. I know what I would rather dispose of. Makes you realise, why so many people have not listened to those telling them, that burning fossil fuels, is a bad idea and is polluting the planet.
Of course this is all theory your talking about. By that I mean not having been in position to live the experiences of a world without the petrol and diesel engine as we know it, and how technology such as this has transformed our lives. You really fancy having to hand crank an engine with two other men just to try and start it. Or perhaps feeding and grooming a horse amongst a host of other jobs at 4 am on a freezing winters morning, that would all need to be done before the main work begins. Repeat, day in and day out. How about cutting up their carcuses, or shoveling huge piles manure? I think not.
