Magnum opus

The Renault Magnum in showland

If I was to ask you to name a typical British fairground lorry, chances are you'd say the classic duo of ERF and Foden, although with those marques gone for over a decade, nowadays Volvo, Scania and DAF are all making considerable inroads into showland at their expense. One manufacturer you probably wouldn't think of is Renault, and there are only a handful of this company's products to be found on the fairs and circuses of Britain.

The Renault Magnum however is one of my personal favourite types as it looks like nothing else on the road with its enormous boxy flat-floored cab and styling that must have been quite space-age at launch in 1991. My love for the Magnum no doubt comes from living in an area where my local fairs are frequently graced by at least one example, so this piece focuses on the Magnums I have photographed on the travelling scene in recent years.

A trio of fairground Magnums in one place, a very rare sight in this country

Unsung heroes: Volvo F86

So far this series has mainly profiled cars, plus a couple of buses and a taxi, but I have never yet looked at the unsung heroes of the trucking world. Today that changes as I pay tribute to a pioneer that made a huge impact on the British haulage industry but lives in the shadow of its more glamorous sister model. Spend just a few minutes watching the traffic on any trunk road and chances are the majority of the many trucks that pass by will be Volvos, such is the marque's dominance nowadays. It all started from humble beginnings half a century ago when a small Scottish dealership called Ailsa Trucks imported their first Volvo F86.

Where it all began - the very first F86 in the UK

The Quest continues

More about Quest 80

I haven't had much time for blogging lately as the show season is now in full swing. Last Sunday I was back at Gaydon for the truck show, but I'm not going to do a full review this time as it was the same deal as the last two years. My star of the show last year was B.R. Whorton's near-unique Quest 80 tipper, and this time they went one better and had both of them in attendance. That meant what is probably the world's entire population of Quest lorries were in one place, and a chat with the gentleman looking after them for the weekend revealed some more information so I can add extra detail to my original piece about Quest 80.

Every Quest lorry in existence in one photo

A trucking good Easter

For most people, Easter Sunday is a time of rest and relaxation. Not for me though as I headed to Jacks Hill Cafe near Towcester for their annual Vintage Truck Gathering. Having never been before, I was expecting a small event featuring a couple of dozen vehicles, but was amazed to discover around a hundred trucks in attendance, covering all eras from pre-war to the early 21st century, along with a lot of motorbikes and a handful of classic cars and light commercials. The event started at 9am and I arrived around 11 to find cars parked all along the verges and the place teeming with people and vehicles.

Trucks everywhere as a Ford Transcontinental squeezes out

Rainy Gaydon and the Truck Show

The British Motor Museum at Gaydon seems to be something of a second home for me at the moment, this being my fourth visit in a year. Just a fortnight after last time I was back again for a repeat of the Classic Truck Show, and in case you're wondering this was a deliberate decision so I could have plenty of time to look around the Collections Centre on my previous visit and wouldn't be rushing around this time trying to see everything in one day, knowing the size of the truck show.

The most apt numberplate of all?

A futile Quest

Quest 80 and the U-drive

I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds the failures of the motoring world so much more fascinating than the successes. So much has already been written about the most celebrated and popular vehicles that there is nothing new to add, but those that failed to make an impact are far more worthy of study and raise so many interesting questions. Why did they fail? Could they have succeeded under different circumstances? And in some cases, what the hell were they thinking?! Today's subject tends to fall in the latter category: unsurprisingly you may never have heard of Quest 80 buses and coaches as they went out of business more than thirty years ago after building just a handful of vehicles, but their claim to fame (or should that be infamy?) was a notoriously cumbersome and inefficient drivetrain that frankly defied engineering logic. Read on to find out more about this strange and forgotten manufacturer and their range of blunderbuses.

Confessions of a Stobart sinner

As a new year is almost upon us and it's a time for making resolutions and fresh starts, I have a terrible sin to confess. Well okay, it really isn't at all bad in the grand scheme of things, but to a certain small sector of society I have committed a series of heinous crimes. So, what am I doing that is so awful? It's quite simple really - I've upset the Stobart Spotters with an intentional programme of destroying Stobart models by repainting and converting them into other forms.

Nice models, shame about the livery. That can be corrected though!

A shrine to Swedish supremacy

Gaydon Truck Show report

Thanks to waning interest in the bus and coach scene, as previously discussed on this blog, I am finding myself increasingly drawn towards trucks. As part of this conversion, I paid a visit to the Classic Truck Show at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon on Sunday and found it a very interesting event, with over 200 real vehicles and countless fine models on display, so here I recount my experiences as a first-time visitor.

A fairground favourite

My home town's annual Charter Fair is always a highlight of the year for me - two consecutive weekends when, by ancient Royal Charter, the town centre is taken over by funfair rides and attractions, together with the lorries that transport them of course. Think of British fairground transport and you'll almost certainly think of ERF.

In 1999 the B-series ERF was still fairly common on the fairs.

Ever since I started photographing the fair way back in 1998, one particular lorry has attended every single year and has become a firm favourite that I am always delighted to see. Registered JKY 452W, she is a B-series ERF built in 1980 and fitted with the fantastic-sounding 240bhp Gardner 8LXB straight-eight engine, and has been owned for many years by the Forest family, who I believe are based in Oxfordshire; having belonged to the late Malcolm Forest, she is now in the hands of his sons Mark and Gary. A classic showman's drawbar unit with a box body and generator, the double-drive rear bogie apparently predates the lorry itself, having been transplanted from an even older A-series.

At the most recent fair I was told by her proud owners that they have a repaint planned for the winter months and there is no intention whatsoever to retire her from service. As the once-common B-series gets ever rarer on the fairs, here's hoping this fine survivor continues for many more reliable years!

Same lorry, same place, 15 years on and still looking just as smart.

Just listen to that sweet straight-eight Gardner...