"What a Beast!" American Reacts to the Scammell Explorer 

we also had these and Thornycoft Antars at the 27 command REME in the 70s merry xmas

@@austinmorris1693 The Antar was a beast 💪 had them at 43 cmd too

My grandad did some work in 43 Command Workshop REME in 1963 at Aldershot he worked at CSS TDU on tanks as well he was in REME but in TA he drove scammells as well and worked on them.

Arte et Marte!

The USPS wanted nice electric mail vans, they ended up with Oshkosh tractors too. Funny how that happens

Also adapted as tank transporter with sloping semi-trailer (shame about the bridge heights with a sherman tank) and recovery SV2. Feel free to improve your knowledge of the subject before commenting again.

Got to drive one for a few minutes when in the Northumbrian OTC (TA) at university. Had a 'drop hand brake' (steel beam with spikes to engage the ground). No power steering. Steering was a beast!

Isn't that an Explorer

We had one at work the original engine was a Meadows I think the winch was second to none

@Philip Oakley yes the power steering was air assistance if my memory serves me right with a non existing steering lock

Mechanical horse in later years actually became only its nickname, a carry over from the very first ones produced which WERE named the mechanical horse by Scammel themselves it was actually renamed the Scammel Scarab not long after the one in the pic is actually a post war Scarab, I used to see hundreds of them working in the fifties around the local docks and railway goods yards when I was a young boy in Liverpool in the fifties, you could easily tell early and late ones apart, as pre war and very early post war Scarabs were painted a sort of railway private green the later ones as here were painted in B.R's new at the time cream over maroon, I was lucky enough to even ride in a few as my dad was a driver for a local transport company who owned several, comfort was NOT a word you associated with the Scarab back then - but then it was never intended to be, it was a no frills work horse pure and simple, heater ? -forget it, - only some were lucky enough to even have the optional vacuum powered drivers windscreen wiper . My one abiding memory as a young boy though which I think beats the Scarab, was to see every single day the very very last working steam wagon in the Country maybe even the entire world...but not too sure of that last one - a Sentinel steamer working daily non stop since well before the War out of a local cattle food manufacturer called Criddles ltd in Great Homer Street, Liverpool, where I grew up. I would see it every day belching clouds of steam out all over the pavement as it chuffed and puffed at a pretty good lick out of Criddles yard pulling TWO trailers piled high with bags of cattle feed on its way to the docks. (overloading was common practice everywhere back then).

The real incentive to produce something which could turn in its own length was the fact that most British railway stations dated from the 1840-1880 period and the station yards were laid out for horse traction. Mechanical horses never completely replaced real horses which were ideal for local cartage work, and when the railways were nationalised in 1948 there were still 7000 horses at work.

@@davidjones332 You are right, there were still dozens and dozens of working horse's round our way even in the mid fifties, in fact reading your post led me to reminiscing, and then remembering that actually there was STILL a large working livery stable at the bottom of our street, and after consulting old 20's/30's maps of the area was actually surprised to find loads more all within about three quarters of a mile that didnt close for business till 1960/61, (probably compulsory purchased by Liverpool City Council who knocked ALL of our houses and businesses down (tens of thousands of dwellings bulldozed inside 18 months) - in a time of extreme housing shortages !! - just so they could turn the WHOLE area into "Everton vally park" - JUST what WE needed NOT !......and over fifty years later it is STILL a park...and we STILL have a housing shortage.

A lot of matadors went into forestry too, at least the ones in recovery jobs got looked after.... The same can't be said for most forestry wagons. Mind you the ones still on the road are nearly 90 years old so I suppose any surviving is a good thing.

My grandad was in REME TA in 1963 he drove scammells and worked on them in Wales and Cyprus they had seven out in Cyprus he drove a WW2 Pioneer out there which was a wreck and ran by diesel he drove Explorer as well which had meadows engine the WW2 pioneer he dumped and ripped parts off of it.

powered by a meadows petrol in service

@@Crash-zm2qd True. Pioneer was Gardner diesel powered during WW2. Government policy changed after WW2 so the "Army got petrol, the Navy got diesel and the RAF got paraffin. "To make logistics easier" (supply trucks to you and me)

@@dukwdriver2909 he knew a lot about scammells wished I asked I asked him more questions he worked on Bedford RLs and Series 1 land rovers too.

Explorers were new to the Forces in 1950s. More likely Pioneers that were not being converted to "SV2" recoveries to fill a shortfall

Those are Showmasters. There were some 7 ever made, and six of them are now operated by the same Fairgound company. it the Scammels are running, it is a "Diesel Day", if the traction engines are generating the power, it is a "Steam Day"! That is an awesome heritage fairground event!

The travelling fair that came to Orpington in Kent was called Bottons, they had a winter yard at Green Street Green just a few miles from Orpington.

@@hugovaughan Showtrac and there were about 18 made.

Total monsters, was told about these things by old Diggers. at the time, I thought they were scamming me, but found out they really existed.

Please enlighten me. They failed as tank transporters above 20 tons in WW2. At the time of the Scammell Explorer in the 1950s + the tank transporter tractor was the Thorneycroft Antar Mk 2 with the a petrol engine. If you ever had to refuel a truck that did 1 mile/gallon with jerrycans on exercise, you would know this.

That would more likely have been the explorer's sister machine the Atlantic

@@dukwdriver2909 the tank transporter Scammell pioneer was rated to carry 30ton but often went upto 40ton. The explorer recovery was used to tow up to 70ton in Korea according to a driver I knew

@@partymanau

In gear I would say Rick.

@@exb.r.buckeyeman845 that's my first choice to. It's still an impressive piece of towing.

I'm the driver of the towed Explorer, I ease the foot brakes on to add drag. Glad you guys enjoy this, we normally get shouted at for having fun 😉

the three-wheeled cabs meant it had a very tight turning circle

@@ianprince1698 You beat me to it 🙂. I lived near a large Railway Goods yard as a kid (when we could go in and wander around without being arrested). The thing I remember about the Scarab was it could turn around in it's own length. British Rail, when they did deliveries themselves, had hundreds of them because they were so good in confined spaces. Another sadly lost example of great British engineering.

As the others have said the Scarab had a very tight turning circle it was developed by Scammell and the then British rail. British rail asked for a truck that could turn in the same turning circle as a horse and cart. The Scarab was the result

@@johnwright9562 maybe I should have clarified the 3 wheel system in my post in all fairness, it was extremely clever and well thought out, I did see one at a vintage fair years ago and being about 8 or 9 at the time it did fascinate me to see it amongst other bigger trucks of the time

No problem , I saw the Salvage Squad program it was fascinating. If I remember rightly, it was at one of the heritage railway places

aye they they had scammells there buying in the oshkosh 1070F tank transporters now

My grandad drove them in TA said they were hard to drive and slow.

@@Crash-zm2qd Well, I can imagine that - there was no servo this and automatic that in those days, only good old muscle power. :)

@@petebeatminister yep I remember him saying they were fuel guzzlers constantly topping them up.

Please take the trouble to learn more to respect the people that worked to make your freedom possible. We gave away our skills of generations to buy a truck that can be stopped by a single faulty sensor.

Im glad you said that,

Yeah I noticed that, the rear wheels were going funky.

Yeah, i think they were applying the brakes on the towed explorer to demonstrate the power and torque of this vehicle type..

Awesome, glad to hear that 🎉😎

Brakes*

PS. Cheers for the NZ videos lately.. been a fan and watching from the start of the Aussie videos and it's great to see NZ videos popping back up ... Cheers mate

Not being a smartarse but it's brakes not breaks🙃

@@petercaldwell8674 give me a break....... Haha 😃

Scammel uses British made diesel engines, example Leyland and Rolls Royce/Perkins. Gearboxes are Eaton Fuller

Meadows 6PC630, 6 cylinder.

You can still get new Gardner’s in India 4and 6 lx mainly . I repowered a boat a few years ago with two 6lx mains and 4lx aux . It was a fishing boat built back in the early 60s and they were the original engines

I have a picture of my grandad with a scammell explorer taken in Cyprus in 1963 when he was out there for his annual camp he worked on them and drove them.

I might add that they named a road called Scammel Way built on part of the site of the old Scammel Factory in Watford England

Scammell also made tank transporters - the Australian Army used them to move our Cents. They also made a 100ton transporter for moving locomotives.

Scammell explorer, not pioneer

Thats an explorer would have a meadows petrol engine originally and was not produced untill 50s , the gardner 6 LW engine 40s model was a pioneer ,

My Father did exactly the same, Johnny. 56th Heavy Regiment pulling 7.2s. North Africa, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. Spike Milligan was in the same Regiment and his books document their story. They had one day off for VE day and then were re-equipped with tropical gear for Japan.!

@@squirrels103 Amazing! Dad lost his first Scammell and 7.2 in 1944 when the RAF had the very bad taste to bomb his Regiment (1st Heavy Reg) and a Polish tank regiment equipped with Churchill tanks wiping them out. That's when he got the Diamond T for a while to tow the newly issued US 155mm Long Tom. Later though the Diamond T's were declared not up to the job and he then got a Scammell again which lasted him to 1945. He stored all sorts of things on the roof including a brass bedstead for a while. An uppity officer took a dislike to that and shouted at him to get it off of the roof. Quote, "what do you think this is, a bloody circus"!!! Similar stories to Spike Milligan I would imagine!! 😉👍