A feast of oldies from the horse days
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THE BRITISH Commercial Vehicle Museum, which has been opened at Leyland's old South Works in Leyland, is calculated to delight any historic vehicle buff and many others besides. Exhibits cover the whole spectrum of road transport from the horsed cart to the modern sophisticated bus and lorry.
They include two T types — one a 1921 example of the celebrated Ford, later to become the TT, and the other the lessknown Morris built to rival the TT. Inevitably there is the 1908 Leyland three-tonner with which the name of Carter Paterson will always be associated. In road testing it for the Golden Jubilee issue of Commercial Motor on March 18, 1955, Bill Cotton discovered muscles that he never knew he had.
Some of the rarest exhibits are a 1912 McCurd five-tonner and a 1909 Thornycroft gun tractor with a 13-litre four-cylinder engine from which 50bhp was squeezed at 850rpm. Theoretically, one man could start it by hand but in fact it probably needed a mule train.
When one considers the cost of the dubious pleasure of a visit to the cinema, the exhibition admission charge of £1 is excellent value.