ERF was born in the terrible shadow of the great

27th April 1989, Page 160

27th April 1989

Page 160

Page 161

Page 160, 27th April 1989 — ERF was born in the terrible shadow of the great

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depression of 1930. Convinced that steam power was obsolete and that Foden — the family firm — was already behind the times, Edwin Richard Foden and his son Dennis branched out on their own. They had decided that diesel-engined lorries, and not Foderes clanking steam dinosaurs, would pave the way forward.

It took courage and conviction to leave the business he had inherited from his father. but Edwin Richard had a vision. He had foreseen the death knell of the steam lorry in the closing days of World War One and the 1930 Muffle Act with its restrictive practices merely reinforced his suspicions. Also, the insurance companies were baulking at the idea of underwriting welded steam boilers. He knew that times were changing.

Foden's management. did not share his forward thinking, however, and a boardroom wrangle ended with Edwin Richard "retiring" in 1932. Little did they know that by 1933 he would be back with a vengeance, fronting ER Foden and Son Diesel with his son Dennis, It was not long after his departure from Foden that neighbours began to notice lights burning through the night at Hilary House, the family home in Elworth. The ERF diesel lony was being born in secret Edwin Richard, at the age of 62, was fighting back with Dennis and two former colleagues: Ernest Sherratt, later to be chief designer and technical boss, and George Faullmer, who became works manager.

"We worked in a lean-to conservatory" says Sherratt. "It was very comfortable, and not at all ramshackle" and by Easter 1933 the first ERE.' prototype was at the design stage. The company made its debut at The Motor Show in Olympia later the same year.

"People didn't take us seriously. They said 'What can they do, just three men and a boy?' But we didn't worry," She/Pratt recalls, "We just got cracking with a little factory on land rented from a local oachbuilder called Jennings. We

could build six lorries at a time, and we were so busy getting the job right first time, we never bothered with a research and development department."

It was a two-arded six-tonner, called the CI4 that started it all, and Edwin Richard wrote, in his very first sales brochure: legislation has decided that the wagon must have an unladen weight of under four tons. Therefore my son and I have decided to manufacture a vehicle in this taxation class and have included the strongest frame, the most powerful engine, a robust gearbox, sturdy axles, coupled with efficient and powerful brakes."

He saved the punchline for the end. "We are building this on totally different business methods which we know will reduce very considerably overhead charges, and in that way our customers will reap the benefit." The brave founders of ERF had not only gambled on a new company with a new product in difficult times: they had also decided to revolutionise the way vehicle manufacturers went about things.

They bought in the components. It may sound simple enough today, but it was heresy at the time when industry leaders like Foden, Thorneycroft, Albion, AEC, Leyland et al made everything in their own foundries and machine shops.

"That was our key difference, and time has proved us right," says Shen-att. "We could switch supplies around by buying in." The axles came from Kirkstall. The cabs were put together by Jennings, the engine was the four-cylinder 4LW Gardner and David Brown supplied a four-speed transmission.

The company did, however, make its own radiators out of aluminium. The braking system used the thennew vacuum-hydraulic principle with Lockheed supplying the hydraulics and Clayton Dewandre the servos. The first chassis was supplied on 1 September 1933, just six months after the company's birth.

More models were to follow, and customers soon began to sense that ERF was a badge worth following. Haulage in the thirties was even tougher than it is today. One early customer told the company, "The day I can't overload an ERF, I'll stop buying them." ERF won a reputation for strength and the small family firms which bought ERF in the beginning were soon joined by big fleet buyers like Reliance 'rankers.

At the end of 1933 ERF had made 31 trucks and had redefined the seven to eight ton load capacity concept in British commercial vehicle design. Production reached 96 vehicles in 1934; 115 in l935;210 in 1936;352 in 1937;413 in 1938;434 in 1939 and 427 at the end of the decade. In just seven hectic years ERF's annual production rate had increased fourteen-fold.

Meanwhile in 1935 ERF built its first six wheeler made to order for Hall's Ibffee. "That was rather funny, actual! ," Ernest Sherratt recalls. -Hall's ordered our first sixwheeler and Reliance 'Milkers the second, and while we were building the latter they came back and said 'could you make it an eightwheeler?' We did, of course:*

That year was a watershed in other ways. The original company name, ER Foden and Son Diesel, was causing confusion, claimed Sandhach neighbours Foden, and ERF was born as the official marque name. It was also the beginning of the run-up to World War 1Wo.

The 1937 line-up of a 4x 2, 6x 4, 8x4 and twin-steer 6 x 2 were all in production. Simple and strong, the C14 truck that had been present at the company's birth was also its sole product for the Minisuy of Supply at the start of the war The beginning of World War II meant that ERFs designs for future trucks had to go on the back burner.

lbugh times had bred a tough competitor, and ERFs sturdy little truck was fighting its way forward on all fronts. Designer Ernest Sherratt, however, had other ideas and he was already plotting the shape of things to come. War wastes so many things, not least progress, and ERF was just biding its time.