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Rose-tinted Transit memories
Page 32
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CONGRATULATIONS ON your excellent and informative coverage of the Transit's 40th birthday (CM 6 October), but! fear CM's recollections of the York diesel are far too rose-tinted.
I still shudder at the memory of Irving to kick these obstinate lumps into life on cold and damp mornings. a task likely to take anything up to 15 fraught minutes. The best solution I encountered was at a Southampton firm that towed them around the yard behind a solo F86 tractor unit until, coughing and wheezing smoke, they grudgingly clattered into life. Once started woe betide any York diesel-powered Transit van driver who didn't have a full bulkhead; deafness and headaches would be the order of their working day.
A quarter of a century on, Ford still can't make a decent small diesel, hence the slow surrendering of its previous market dominance.
On the plus side, I fondly recall a 1979 LWB V4 petrol engine Transit van used for pulling exhibition trailers that gave a decade of sterling service, until the back doors finally fell off... Dave Young Editor, Truck and Driver