Next Week
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WHEN CM road tested five 71/2-tonners around Wales last November, Bedford, Leyland and Mercedes-Benz were absent from our parade. Now they have all been safely gathered in. Bryan Jarvis and Brian Weatherley have completed another group test featuring a Bedford TL 750, a Leyland Roadrunner 8.12 and a Mercedes-Benz 814 and the smaller engined 79.10 lveco model. The question uppermost in our minds was: Which one, if any, would knock the Ford Cargo off the top of the fuel consumption perch? The answer is that one certainly did this, and it came as quite a surprise, too. Read the results in next week's issue.
• Truckfast looks like being the in place to visit this Easter. This CM-sponsored truck extravaganza at the East of England Showground near Peterborough is set to be even bigger than last year when it drew crowds of 80,000. Read CM's full preview next week. • And we are taking a look at the North West next week. While it suffers industrial deprivation, around 18,000 0licences are authorised in its Traffic Area and it has an important part to play in Britain's overall transport pattern. John Durant meets a haulier who is making progress and whose drivers and other staff — like so many employees of smaller firms — are first class. He looks into the outlook in both the hire or reward and own-account transport fields.
• On the passenger transport side, Noel Millier focuses on National Bus Company North-western subsidiary, Crosville. With the future of the local bus business difficult to predict it is hard for many operators to justify major investment in new vehicles. As an alternative to buying new Crosville is renovating the old for a second life. It is busy re-engining a large number of single-deck buses in its fleet as Noel discovered when he visited the company's central works at Chester.