ANCIENT HISTORY
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In 1964, Bob Paul and Mike Woodman bought a used truck and drove 5,000 miles from London to Afghanistan’s capital Kabul.
Neither man had ever driven a truck before, yet these pioneers successfully made the return journey and were single-handedly responsible for opening up the trucking route to the Middle East.
The company went from strength to strength, and in the 1970s was the subject of the fascinating BBC documentary Destination Doha, arguably the best trucking film ever made. Viewers were transfixed by the numerous hazards faced by the Astran drivers, which included breakdowns, skiing, suicidal local drivers, blizzards, getting bogged-down in sand, and broken false teeth! To many people, these were the glory days of Middle East trucking. In the mid-1980s, Astran became a freight forwarder, and stopped running its own trucks. Although it survived the next two decades, it was a shadow of its former self.