BIRD'S EYE VIEW BY THE HAWK
Page 20
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• Current plans to sell Finishmade Sisu trucks in the UK are not the first, I am reminded by a reader.
It was as far back as 1974 that Roger Bradley from Clay Cross, Derbyshire, was the proprietor of a thriving Seddon Atkinson dealership. He imported a handful of bonneted Sisu 6x4 tipper/dumptruck chassis into Britain from Finland.
They were powered by a Rolls-Royce Eagle 220 engine, driving through a Fuller gearbox, which meant that Bradley could, if the venture succeeded, readily provide service back-up from his Seddon franchise.
Alas, the market proved too tough. There was competition from Magirus-Deutz and MAN, both of whom had 6x6 as well as 6x4 chassis on offer and Volvo (with its N10). Then, as • Introducing the Rollerskate car, the very vehicle to have when you want to put your foot down — and there's plenty of room in the boot. The driver sits above the laces and can look down on his neighbours from 3.5m, while revving a Chevvy 327 we-eight engine. But handle with care — the construction is in styrofoam and glass fibre. Surprise, surprise, you have to go to Hollywood to buy one — from auto builder Jay Ohrberg.
• A Seddon Atkinson "knight of the road" badge is on its way to three readers who recognised a 1969 Silver Knight with a Rolls Royce engine (CM 7-13 March). Congratulations to CT Williams, Overton-onDee, Clwyd; C Holland, Peterborough, Cambs; and C Chesterrnan, Glenfield, Leics.
now, the UK construction industry proved reluctant to follow the Continental example of buying road vehicles derived from dumptrucks for quarry duties, preferring wholly offroad machines.
• Monday: The Hawk despatches a minion to the Driver Vehicle Licensing Centre in Swansea to witness Roads and Traffic Minister Christopher Chope launching the unified driver licence system.
The arrangement is to meet the chap from the DVLC at Neath station. Our hack alights place in May. Is it: East of Eden; East of England; or East of Ipswich.
Answers on a postcard by 12 April, please. As for Bradley, he went on to build refuse collection vehicles and related ancillary equipment, leaving Sisu to wait nearly 20 years for another British entrepreneur to come forward.
from the train and strides purposefully towards a gaggle of smartly-dressed folk assembled on the platform, which he assumes to be the man from the DVLC with some fellow hacks who have travelled up from London.
Imagine his surprise then, when he found himself shaking • The Association of London Authorities seems to have too much of a good thing if a press release which landed on the Hawk's desk this week is anything to go by. Proposals to deregulate bus services in the capital will mean a "surplus of competing services at peak times", it thunders, "and a surfeit off peak". Surely the silly burghers mean "dearth".
• If you go down to the woods today you're in for a big surprise. . . as indeed four policemen were when a wild pig attacked their van while they were sitting in it eating sandwiches in the New Forest. It is not known if the sandwiches contained slices of the animal's dearly departed, but the vehicle was damaged so severly that an official report had to be submitted; the coppers escaped un-hammed.
hands with Peter Hain, the Labour candidate in the forthcoming Neath by-election, who introduces our hack to a beaming Glynis Kinnock; exuding friendliness and charm . . .
Nothing could be a greater contrast to the Roads and Traffic Minister. When questioned by CM later that morning about the introduction of 44tonne lorries, he snaps: "I didn't come here to discuss lorries," and turns on