Vintage Roadscene Archive

Vintage Roadscene Archive is a series of one-off publications taking a comprehensive look at key aspects of road transport history from lorry manufacturers, operators and industries. These publications are featured in a largely pictorial presentation, using the resources of well-known photographic archives, backed up by the memories of enthusiasts and industry professionals who were there at the time. Vintage Roadscene Archive provides an unrivalled wealth of information and period pictures go to make up an ongoing series which will build into a library of interest to all transport enthusiasts. With each issue you can be assured of interesting and informative reading, enhanced with top-quality pictures of various aspects in road haulage.

ATKINSON I WAS SORT OF THERE. BUT AT THE WRONG TIME! • As a vehicle industry journalist, Malcolm Bates was on the Seddon Atkinson Press List and was invited to the launches of the new 200, 300 and 400 Series models. Before that? As editor of Local Authority Plant & Vehicles magazine, Truck & Van Mart and for a brief moment, ‘Trucking Life’, he tested various Seddon-Atkinson chassis – including the short-lived ‘Britannia’ built by Seddon Atkinson for Jack Allen Motor Bodies. But before all that? As Malcolm explains, he was an admiring visitor to the Atkinson stand at Earls Court…

SHORT AND SWEET? THE ATKINSON TIMELINE • Vehicle manufacturers either seem to adopt the name (or names) of their founders, the location of the factory that built them, or a set of initials that had the aim of reducing a right mouthful of a monicker to an easier-to-remember brand name. Foden, Leyland and AEC are suitable examples of each, in-turn. But Atkinson? Here’s a thing, the company Edward Atkinson founded seems to have performed far better AFTER he was relieved of his duties, than while he was in charge! It was only when his bankrupt company was taken over by others and the switch made from steam to diesel propulsion that business started to take off, leading to Atkinson becoming an iconic brand of British commercial vehicles. ‘The Knight of the Road’ indeed. But in a final twist, it seems that it was too much success, rather than any financial failing, that did for Atkinson resulting in the takeover by Seddon. That ‘merger’ deserved to be more successful than it turned out to be, as it was an ideal product ‘fit’. Ironically, Atkinson chassis only got the all-steel tilt cab they deserved after Seddon took control. Here, Malcolm Bates attempts to put things in some sort of chronological order…

ATKINSON – THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT • Atkinson. ‘The Big A’. The archetypal ‘Guvnor’s Wagon’. The very best of British Commercial Vehicle Engineering? Or a Prime Example of Management Indecision, a lack of forward thinking and Investment that enabled the Foreign Importers to gain a foothold in Global Export Territories and then, within a few short years, kick down an open door to the mainstream UK Home Market? Here, long-time Atkinson fan Malcolm Bates provides some personal reflections on The Rise – and Fall - of one of most old lorry enthusiast’s favourite brands. On the way, he discovers that ironically, it was arguably too much sales success that contributed the company losing it’s independence, rather than not enough.

WHEN THEY WERE NEW - PICTURES OF ATKINSONS IN ORIGINAL LIVERY • In real life, old Atkinsons often soldiered-on well past their best, thanks to some pretty basic, but sound, engineering. Then of course, there was that legendary Gardner diesel engine that just kept on going. And going… Without ‘going’ especially fast, that is. As a result, those traditional Atkinson looks and well-tried construction techniques have all gone to make any ‘Atki’ worthy of a place in many a well-healed haulier’s so-called ‘Heritage Fleet’. But we should remember that the main reason so many old Atkis have survived long enough to reach Preservation is...