Friday 8 February 2008

Sweat, Steam & Gasoline


Horse Box, Coal Lorry, and Gas Tanker all in ERF glory. I'm afraid the Marshal horse box has lost its side door and they all seem a little battle fatigued. I was particularly pleased with the menacing look of the tanker cab, reminiscent of the Peterbilt tractor unit from Duel. I once had the pleasure of driving a Gardner engined ERF KV series 8 wheeler of mid fifties vintage on corn carting duties - it had no brakes and relied entirely on engine braking, making a missed gear catastrophic - no pressure, and all very Stanley Baker I recall.

3 comments:

Affer said...

What great little beasts! Mention of "Duel" reminds me that, back in the 80s, I spent some time in Detroit working on GM's big trucks. The engineers there thought Forward Control was for effeminate Europeans, and really wanted to work on Peters' and Kenworths. Instead, they had to make do with the GM Astro - a terrible thing. I drove in one, and in a Peterbilt, around their high speed test track in Milford, and what I remember was the extreme reluctance of their test driver to do a lane change at anything over 55 mph.....
In contrast, we had a Bedford TL/TM hybrid set up like a Formula One car; in that truck, WE would have got Dennis Weaver, no problems!

Peter Ashley said...

But the toys, the toys. Anybody know a good trouser cleaner?

Peter Ashley said...

Looking at this pic again, (shot on an infinity scoop fashioned from kitchen roll apparently), I've just decided that as I don't stand a monkeys of getting into the Foden Works Brass Band I might give the ERF table tennis club a go.