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Past masters

Edward Atkinson did not intend to be a truck builder, he "bumped" into it. fie set out in 1907 to run a small millwright and general engineering workshop in Kendal Street, Preston, but quickly ended up — more or less by accident — with the best steam wagon repair shop in central Lancashire.

By 1912 Atkinson had abandoned mill work and general engineering completely and was concentrating on the fast-growing world of commercial vehicles. He had just acquired an agency for one of the major steam wagon manufacturers of the day, Alley and McLellan of Glasgow — later to be renamed Sentinel — and things were going well.

lie saw his opening in 1915 when he and his brother designed their own wagon, combining the best features of the vehicles which passed through their workshops every day and including a couple of new features of their own.

This first truck was a six-ton undertype unit with solid rubber tyres on cast steel wheels featuring a vertical boiler and a twin cylinder non-compound engine with ball valves operated by camshafts and pushrods. The Sentinel agency dropped away by mutual consent and a small steam wagon manufacturing operation was born.

In The Commercial Motor, 7 September 1916, we wrote: "Reviewing the design, we find it commendable on several grounds. An attempt has been made to increase the life of the machine by generous allowances of bearing surfaces through the mechanism. It is accessible particularly in respect of such things as glands, adjustments, lubrication and water valves. The need of comfort for the driver has not been overlooked and an additional six inches of length for the cab, over and above that usually allowed, has been dedicated to this service." By now 300 companies were dependent upon Atkinson for the repair and maintenance of their steamers.

Edward Atkinson also proudly told us at the time that he was launching a new concept of customer service "as a result of his experience as a repairer". The Commercial Motorwas clearly dubious, but gave him the benefit of the doubt: "By service we understand him to mean personal Inspection of the wagon by one of his representatives, either fortnightly or monthly, as may be deemed advisable. The inspector will simply meet the wagon somewhere on one of its journeys and go round with it making an inspection of such parts as are available and, what is more important, judging of the wagon's condition by its actual running. By these means It is hoped to reduce the effects consequent upon the occasional employment of drivers of a poor class."

Two years later, at the close of World War One, Atkinson invented a unique "Underflow" valve boiler and the company was set to capitalise on the boom years of the 1920s. Atkinson had done well during the war years, boosting output to three steamers a week. Immediately after Armistice was declared, a new factory was opened employing 100 people. By the early 1920s the workforce had grown to 150 and the steam wagon industry was booming. The leading manufacturers would make more profit during these years than at any other time until well after World War Two. Atkinson stood out from the crowd by offering a nine-model range. Foden, for example, offered two. Atkinson developed a reputation for solid engineering and road safety; in a period of scant attention to safety Atkinson fitted the best brakes in the business, Then came the depression. Profits began to dip and the stockmarket crashed in 1929. The internal combustion engine was gaining ground and Atkinson had not gone with the flow. Edward Atkinson was declared bankrupt in the winter of 1930 and the Kendal Street factory was reduced to just 10 men repairing and maintaining steamers.

But to the surprise of the receivers this was not the end, because three Lancashire businessmen made a good offer for Atkinson. At the end of 1931 they had put the factory back to work, building trailers for the new generation of diesel-engined lorries being manufactured by companies like Leyland.

Then, in our issue of 29 September 1931, The Commercial Motor reported: "We are advised by Atkinson Walker Wagons of Kendal Street works, Preston that it hopes shortly to introduce two types of oil-engined lorry." The age of steam was over and born-again Atkinson was ready to join the diesel revolution with its own designs.

According to The Commercial Motor, "one is a rigid six-wheeler designed to carry 12 tons, whilst the other is a four-wheeler with a useful payload of 6 tons. The former will be priced at £1,450 and the latter at £1,250. In due course we hope to give a full description of these vehicles. The following leading details are of interest.

The engine is a Blackstone B11V6, having six cylinders with a bore of 4'/o ins, and a stroke of 6 ins, ; the compression ratio is 14 to 1 and the output is 55 b.h.p. at 1,000 r.p.m. The wellknown Blackstone springinjection system is, of course, employed. Oil is forced into troughs under the big-ends and thence is fed by splash.

The drive is taken through a multiple-disc, dry clutch to a fourforward-speed gearbox, which is separately mounted and affords overall ratios ranging from 3.75 to 1 to 28.1 to I. Starting may be either by an electric motor or by an auxiliary petrol engine, used in conjunction with the starting handle. An enclosed propeller shaft takes the drive to a double-reductiontype axle with fully floating shafts."

Asthe company got back on its feet, Edward Atkinson was once again a director of the ompany. ills involvement with the new operation, however, was tragically short and he died of cancer in the winter of 1932.

In the same year, an Atkinson salesman called Reg Long called at a garage in Bal ham, south London, to see if its owner, William Allen, would be interested in taking an agency for the company's flourishing third-axle conversion business. Allen travelled up to Freston and liked what he saw so much that he bought Atkinson lock, stock and barrel for the princely sum of £6,500. The company was re-born and given a new name: Atkinson Lorries (1933) Ltd.

Allen transformed the management of the operation. All of the old stock was sold off, with a lot of steamer parts going to Bibby's of Liverpool.

Ancient machinery on the shop floor was scrapped or sold and new equipment installed. Third-axie conversion work boomed, as did diesel engine conversion work and the new company quickly outgrew its Kendal Street site, moving to Marsh Lane, Preston. Full scale diesel powered truck production loomed large. More space at Preston focussed the mind of the company, and a truck engine was chosen to power the future — Gardner. The company set out to manufacture its own vehicles again.

Atkinson planned its new range on a rationalised basis, with fourwheeled 7/71/2 tonners,

six-wheeled 10/12tonners, all with Gardner LW series engines, David Brown gearboxes and Kirkstall axles built into Atkinson's own chassis and topped by an upright cab. The design was an immediate success, and within a few months there were fourand six-wheeled Atkinsons working as far apart as Lancashire, London and Worcester.

However, space at the new Marsh Lane plant was restricted, and all the chassis were built on a one-ata-time basis. In 1935 only six trucks were completed. Ten more followed in 1936, a dozen in 1937 (including a new eight-wheeler), 14 in 1938, and only eight more before war broke out in September 1939.

Just as Atkinson was moving into the dieselengine era, another company was moving in a parallel direction. Foster and Seddon, a successful Lancashire charabanc operator and Reo truck dealer, decided it was time to build its own trucks. Robert Seddon patented his designs in 1937 and built his truck around the Perkins, rather than the Gardner diesel engine.

The company had begun life just after the close of World War One when his brother Herbert Seddon returned home to Lancashire from the Royal Flying Corps expecting to join the family butchering business, lie didn't, he set up in business with Ernest Foster instead, running a 26-seater charabanc to the Lancashire seaside from the company's base in the Pendleton district of Salford. The average fare for a return seaside trip was three shillings (15 pence).

The prototype was introduced in October 1938 and the lightweight chassis, which Commercial Motor roadtested for the first time in its issue of 9 June 1939, was described as "scientific". Our roadtesters concluded that "the machine can be loaded to a gross weight of 8.75 tons so that its performance may be considered excellent." The 85hp Ftrkins P6 "Panther" diesel engine "afforded a lively performance" and Commercial Motor managed 0 to 33 mph in "about 35 seconds".

In that same, fateful summer, Atkinson had been working on a lightweight truck too, a six-tonner. Speed limits were dictated by weight and everyone wanted trucks to be as light, and therefore as nimble, as possible.

According to Commercial Motor of 9 June 1939, the new Atkinson unladen weighed "2 tons 9cwt, 'Gibs, and it can carry 6 tons of payload. The price of the new Atkinson chassis is £865".

Then came the war. Foster and Seddon was told by the Ministry of Supply to build trailers for the war effort, though officialdom later relented and allowed a maximum of three trucks a week for civilian use.

Atkinson, whose first eight-wheeler had come out in 1937 was still a very small outfit at the outbreak of hostilities. And yet, in 1940, something remarkable happened. The Ministry of Supply ordered 60 12-ton six wheelers and this tiny, struggling company suddenly had to build more trucks in one go than it had built in its entire history. With materials supplied on time by the Government, the order was completed within 12 months and the following year came the call for 100 more sixwheelers.

When peace came, Atkinson decided to try and boost its independent truck production to keep the wartime momentum going. William Allen reckoned about six chassis a week should be built to keep the operation viable and that the Marsh Lane site was too small. In December 1946, the company acquired a site at Walton-le-Dale (a village south of Preston) and a new factory was built before the end of the following summer, opening during 1948.

Gardner engines were hard to get, and the AEC engines Atkinson had been forced to fit during the war became standard fittings. David Brown gearboxes were in short supply too so the company built its own five-speed gearbox.

Foster and Seddon now busied itself improving the same six-ton design which had edged the company into the truck building world just before Hitler marched west. The first new version, the Mark 4 was a long-chassis bus version and in 1947 the Mark 3 came along with a stronger frame and suspension, up-rated axles, a fivespeed box and the same aluminium radiator as the bus. This was the truck that made Seddon's name and it stayed in production until 1962. The runaway success Mark 5 came in three wheelbases: 13ft 6in for truck or van use, 10ft for tippers and 91t for tractive units. Early in 1948 Foster and Seddon opted to move to bigger premises too, buying the wartime ClaudeHobson aircraft carburettor works at Shaw, near Oldham for 2300,000. This has remained the home of the operation to the present day.

Atkinson ended the 1940s by reintroducing Gardner engines to its chassis, with the launch in 1947 of the six-tonpayload 644 powered by the 4LK Gardner.

Commercial Motor reported that the end of the decade had a foreign flavour and all of the truck manufacturers were being encouraged to export hard. The country's flagging economy needed all the help it could get. Seddon Fixed up a deal with Hindustan Aircraft Ltd of Bangalore to build chassis under licence in India, and Atkinson —without having made a single export truck before 1948 — ended 1949 with vehicles in operation in South Africa, Rhodesia, Australia, Fbrtugal and Holland.

Although the fifties kicked oft with rationing, austerity, nationalisation of road haulage and a 20mph speed limit for heavy goods vehicles, it wasn't all doom and gloom — especially for Atkinson Lorries and Oldham-based Foster and Seddon, soon to be re-formed as Seddon Motors under the growing influence of Harry Redmond.

Atkinson meanwhile was creating news with the adoption of the 140hp Gardner 81W engine in its six and eight-wheelers and the launch of a mid-engined coach chassis.

In 1952 almost 50% of Atkinson's production (300 vehicles a year) was exported. For Seddon it was 60%, going to no fewer than 54 countries.

The 1953 Scottish Motor Show was certainly eventful, with the debut of the revolutionary Seddon 25cwt — the forerunner of today's parcel vans — complete with Perkins' "high-speed" R-type engine.

The bonneted 25cwt Seddon was launched on an unsuspecting public just two months after rumours that Foden was to take over Seddon Motors — rumours that were hotly denied by Herbert Seddon.

The biggest news in 1957; aside from the small matter of the launch of Sputnik, was undoubtedly the birth of the mighty Atkinson Omega — a 90 tonne gross weight 6x6 tractor powered by a supercharged six-cylinder Rolls Royce engine. punching out an unheard of 250hp, coupled to an eight-speed Self Changing Gears semi-automatic gearbox.

lf you could see beyond it, however, there was also a new eight-wheeler with the latest 150hp 6LX Gardner engine neatly beneath the all-new MM plastic cab, which would become the forerunner of the famous Borderer design.

The sixties might well be remembered as the swinging decade, but when it came to buying new trucks operators wanted nothing remotely flashy. At the Earls Court Show in 1960, out of the II Atkinsons on display, seven were eight-leggers, with all but one fitted with a Gardner engine. Legislation still favoured the eight-legger and it was the mainstay of maximum-weight hauliers' fleets. But the first rumblings towards artic operations were already being felt. The year of 1961 was certainly a good one for Atkinson. It announced net profits of £58,524 for the year ended March 31 with chairman WO Allen reporting "another record year with turnover increased by 30%".

By 1962 new Seddon models "were proving very popular" according to Herbert Seddon in his chairman's statement, revealing profits of £141,498 and production and turnover up by 18%.

That year, while astronaut John Glenn was starting America on its first faltering steps to the moon, Seddon finally dropped its "Mk" designations, switching to a new system based on weight, wheels and engine type. Thus the 20.4.400 could be deciphered as a 20-tonne-GCW tractor with four wheels and a Leyland 400 engine. Simple wasn't it?

After years of being condemned to cold, drafty and cramped cabs, the driver was slowly beginning to emerge as a major consideration in vehicle design. And Seddon's 13:Four rigid (launched in September 1964) with an all-steel Motor Panels "Supa Cab" clearly showed the way forward.

Tested the following year, it was summed up as "a vehicle with a great deal to recommend it to any operator".

In November Seddon became the first truck builder to fit the 170hp Perkins vee-eight 510 engine. It offered 6.1hp per tonne at 28 tonnes.

\Aiiile Britain was

still flying high af ter that famous 1966 World Cup victory, Atkinson was also getting high with its View Line cab; revealed to unsuspecting operators a month before the Motor Show. Designed to give all the advantages of a tilt cab, without actually tilting, the View Line was a towering 9ft 10in unladen and 41t 8in from the ground to the cab floor.

By 1968 Atkinson was building more tractors than rigids, with its work force producing 1,800 vehicles annually. Seddon, meanwhile, had also built up its bus business, entered the municipal market, and was producing 2,200 vehicles a year at Oldham.

In May, Atkinson's managing director Peter Yates had little doubt that "increasing specialisation on the part of heavy vehicle operators will favour independent manufacturers — because they are in the best position to match the hest available components to the needs of the specialised users".

That philosophy was to be exemplified by the legendary Atkinson Borderer, or Mk 2 tractor, launched at Earls Court in the autumn. The Borderer's cab addressed all those long-standing complaints of the old design, not least the driving position.

Not that Atkinson was getting things all its own way; Seddon's Rolls-engined 32: Four tractor was also earning respect as a hardworking 32-tonner.

As the Seventies dawned few pundits would have doubted that Atkinson and Seddon were doing all right. Both companies entered the new decade with over 12 months of work on their respective order books. But beneath that optimism lay a more depressing picture. While Atkinson turned over £9.3 million in 1969, its net profit was just £177,000. Likewise at Seddon: its 1969 turnover was £10.6 million but net profits were £457,000. Perhaps it was this under performance that sparkedoff what was to become the most bizarre takeover battle for a truck maker ever seen in the UK.

InJune 1970, out of the blue, ERF bid for Atkinson. The following month its Sandbach-based arch-rival Foden put in a counterbid. Bids and counterbids flew back and forth. Then suddenly Seddon Diesel Vehicles came forward with a share and loan stock offer valuing Atkinson at about £5 million — over £800,000 above the ERF Holdings bid.

By November it was all over. ERF was out, Seddon was in, and the future of Atkinson was settled.

Despite all this, both companies were still developing new vehicles, and at the 1970 Earls Court Show, Atkinson revealed a new 6x2 38tonner, complete with 240hp Gardner 8LXB engine, in the shape of its classic Leader chassis.

Come 1971, both companies were busy doing their own thing, albeit under the combined corporate control of Seddon's Harry Redmond. Now was the time to give the company a new identity, and it came in the form of the now-famous "Snail" motif — rumoured to have come about when Harry Redmond spotted two rings left by coffee cups on a drawing board.

In 1972 an era came to an end with the sad death of Herbert Seddon, the man who together with his elder brother Robert had established the original Foster and Seddon company at Salford.

In January 1974 Seddon Motors and Atkinson Vehicles became Seddon Atkinson Vehicles with a head office in Oldham.

Anyone expecting a quiet year would have been in for a shock. Less than three months later International Harvester, the giant US truck and agricultural machinery manufacturer (which already held a 30% share in Daf) bid for the company. The move sparked-off a barrage of "American invasion" scare-stories, with the-then Industry Secretary, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, being besieged by Labour backbenchers calling on him to block the move. He couldn't, and didn't, and by July Seddon Atkinson had been bought by III for a cool 110.5 million. Despite all the ballyhoo, Seddon Atkinson chairman Harry Redmond had little doubt that the move helped the company reach its potential a lot sooner.

Much of that potential was already waiting in the wings, when a "striking" new Seddon Atkinson tractive unit was seen at the Amsterdam Show by CM. While the company stated it should be "viewed as a prototype", production started in 1975.

That prototype was the 400 Series, and within three years, it would become the best-selling tractor in the country, helping to boost Seddon Atkinson's output to 5,000 vehicles a year.

But the 400 Series wasn't going to have it all its own way. The next year it was the turn of the 200 Series middleweight, complete with 111 engine. In 1977 the 200 Series would take the coveted "Truck of the Year" award against stiff continental competition.

By 1979 the company was well and truly in its stride. Turnover was a record £89 million as the company grabbed a 12.5% share of the UK truck market.

By 1980 the missing piece of the jigsaw was added with the arrival of the 300 Series — followed soon after by the 200 Municipal and the SABRE recovery scheme. But the clouds were now gathering on the UK truck horizon.

The early eighties was catastrophic for truck manufacturers. By 1981, commercial vehicle output was down to 1949 levels. Seddon Atkinson reacted by closing its Walton-le-Dale factory and axing jobs at Oldham. In total 810 people out of a staff of 1,836 were made redundant. But bad times can't stop new products' and in 1981 the 401, complete with the much-loved Big A symbol, entered production.

The 401 was followed by the 301 and 201, but for all the good news on the product front, the worst was yet to come. Hi was struggling with problems of its own and before the year was out it announced that Seddon Atkinson was "on offer".

The year 1983 brought a mixture of triumph and tradgedy. A 401 tractive unit with a Gardner engine won CM's first-ever 1,000mile nationwide economy run, but at Oldham a further 384 jobs were cut as the company fought for survival, despite a £3 million cash injection from 111.