(first posted 6/10/2016) Fond youth memories from the seventies and early eighties relived when I visited the classic vehicle show and fair in a village nearby. The event takes place every first Sunday of June. It had been years since I visited the show, time to take a walk through memory lane again. Let’s have a look at my all- time favorite classics, the trucks built from the sixties to the eighties. Once common workhorses, now pampered by enthusiasts.
A 1980 Scania 141 with a 375 hp 14 liter V8 engine. The King of the Road among most truck drivers: a Scania with a V8, then and now.
Standard equipment on all European 6×2 trucks and tractors, a liftable tag axle.
1970 Volvo N86 dump truck, powered by a 6.7 liter 6-cylinder turbo diesel.
Evidently Fiat did not only build small stuff, above a RHD heavy-duty 690T2 tractor.
1963 Magirus-Deutz Mercur 150, under its hood an air cooled 9.5 liter 6-cylinder diesel engine.
The legendary Mercedes-Benz L-series, a 1513 dump truck with an Atlas crane.
Still a daily driver, this 1986 Mercedes-Benz 2628 6×6 dump truck, also equipped with a PTO driven crane. GVM 26 metric ton, 280 hp engine; it says so on the door.
The successful Volvo F88-F89 series was built between 1965 and 1977. Above a 1976 Volvo F88 4×2 tractor.
Imported into the Netherlands 10 years ago, this 1992 Kenworth W900.
On the other side of the truck-spectrum, in all possible ways, a 1965 Barkas B1000.
Always nice to see a complete combination. The 1976 Volvo F88 tractor is towing a single-axle Floor semi-trailer for hauling bricks, tiles etc. It’s equipped with a Kennis rolloader crane.
The crane’s left track.
Splendid ! A 1956 Goliath Goli with a 461 cc 2-cylinder engine, ready for peddling fruit and vegetables.
I love this attention to detail. Flipje (Dutch for Little Flip) from Tiel says hello.
A 1980 MAN KAT1 4×4 military truck, powered by an air cooled Deutz 12.7 liter V8 diesel engine, 256 hp. Civilian MAN trucks have a water cooled MAN engine. The roots of MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg) can be traced back to 1758. Another thing worth knowing is that MAN built the world’s first direct injected diesel engine, in the year 1924.
Off-road worthy super singles and coil springs all around.
Clean 1955 Magirus-Deutz S3500 truck.
A close-up view of its air cooled 5.3 liter 4-cylinder diesel engine. Deutz, another very old name. Its history goes back to 1864, when Carl Eugen Langen and Nicolaus August Otto founded the world’s first engine factory N.A. Otto & Cie. I give you a hint: the invention of the four-stroke internal combustion engine.
The Netherlands. DAF trucks. Above a 1974 DAF V1600DD 4×4 dump truck.
1967 DAF A1600DD (Frog-DAF) flatbed truck with a matching drawbar trailer.
For the conventional customer, a 1968 DAF conventional truck (DAF Torpedo).
1972 Scania 110 Super, 260 hp from its 11 liter 6-cylinder diesel engine.
What a treat ! A 1978 DAF FA1600DT carrying a Russian 1965 GAZ 69M.
1963 Ford Thames Trader 40 fire truck.
Side-profile of a 1971 DAF FT2605DKA. The DAF 2600-series was introduced in 1962, designed as a long distance truck and tractor.
1986 Leyland Roadrunner 10.12. The light Roadrunner truck model was introduced in 1984, later on it was sold as a Leyland DAF and DAF model (DAF took over Leyland Trucks in 1987).
The Leyland’s cargo.
Just a few more for the moped fans.
The only thing this 1970 DAF FA1600DF needs is a dump bed for hauling grain.
A heavy-duty 1973 Mercedes-Benz LPS2024 tractor unit.
1943 Dodge WC51 military truck.
The MAN box truck above is on a business trip.
1978 Volkswagen T2 single-cab pickup. As far as I know wooden shoes with a VW-logo were never a factory option.
Agreed ! A nice collection of classic farm tractors attending the show is already waiting for an article.
Is it Christmas morning? Thank you, Johannes! These are all wonderful, and many of these are the trucks from my childhood, or when I went back over as a teenager. I love them all, but have a special attraction to the DAF cab-overs, and that Scania Super.
What a show! Thanks Dutch
Are cab-overs still common in Europe?
Very common indeed, big conventional trucks are extinct. Not one of the main truckmakers (Scania, Volvo, DAF, MAN, Iveco, Mercedes-Benz and Renault) offers a factory conventional model in Europe nowadays.
I’m far from a truck expert, but it seems to me that even in the 70s, long-nose trucks were popular mostly in Northern Europe. Possibly because of different tastes/regulations/roads ?
Also, judging by the Trilex rims, the plate frame and the fact that it’s RHD, the Fiat is probably an Italian import. Fiat offered both LHD and RHD trucks well into the 80s, as Italian truck drivers who had to drive in the mountains or in rural parts of Italy wanted RHD trucks, so they could better see the edge of the road.
Conventional trucks were indeed still common in the seventies. Especially the Scanias, as trucks and tractors, and the on/off-road trucks (mostly dump trucks) from MAN, Mercedes-Benz, Magirus-Deutz and Tatra. And Volvo still offered their N-series conventionals (the square model, not the older type pictured in the article).
I did a Google Image Search for the big Fiat trucks, and I noticed they were all RHD. So thanks for your explanation !
Very interesting! I am not very well versed on large trucks, but these seem quite similar to many of those built in the States – there seems to have been less difference in large trucks than there was in the smaller ones between Europe and the US. Of course, the big western US conventionals like that Kenworth do stand out.
I now understand PN’s comment when I wrote up the 1950s Brockway, and how it reminded him of some of the big trucks from Europe of the time. I certainly see it now.
That Ford Thames ambulance is interesting – someone apparently could not resist the urge to recycle the 1953 American Ford truck grille.
The Ford Thames Trader cab goes back to 1957, so I suppose 1953 wasn’t considered too far back then! They were replaced by the tilt-cab D series in 1965.
There was another less styled Trader model before the D series.
This is wonderful, Johannes! It’s God, not the Devil in the details of these beauties. There’s just enough difference between them and those we see at truck shows Statebound to admire a slightly different take on practicality from diverse trucking cultures. The Ford would be a huge hit over here, the Goli was obviously a labor of love for both the restorer and manufacturer, and that 9.5L 6 cylinder air cooled diesel… how LOUD is that?
It’s loud alright. Deutz also built an air cooled 17 liter V12 diesel, BTW…
Great video… what a “wow” of an ending, too!
+1 +1 +1 !!
Quite the collection of trucks, which are a wonderful reflection of European needs and culture. Terrific!
The only experience I have with any of these is the Kenworth. A few years ago, on a quiet Friday afternoon when I had the fleet manager gig as an “other duty as assigned”, I took a Kenworth T-800 (I think that’s the model) with a day cab for a spin around the lot just for giggles.
Not even using all 475 horsepower, that was a blast. I would love to take any of these for a similar joyride.
Looks like quite a new crane on that L series. I had an Atlas crane on my last truck. Worked about 60% of the time.
The Fiat immediately reminded me of the car transporter in “The Italian Job”.
What would be the purpose of bringing the Kenworth to the Netherlands? Just a show-truck? Was there a practical need for something like that?
I assume it’s a show-truck. Although there are a few conventional Peterbilts and Kenworths being used as work-trucks.
There’s no practical need for such long tractors given their turning radius (lots of tight cornering here) and the overall length restrictions of big rigs. As you can see all Euro-trucks have a set-back front axle, both the COEs and the conventionals. Only the Frog DAFs have their front wheels positioned somewhat close to the front bumper.
The fleet I’m part timing in is mostly DAFs and Isuzus but took delivery of a new Kenworth 8 wheel tipper recently, its on a DAF chassis. Interesting that PACCAR use the European chassis for its American range.
Thanks for posting these. After spending most of my working life around heavy trucks and equipment I’m always interested to see how things are done in other places.
The cabover/conventional ratio here in North America is totally reversed, you rarely ever see a cabover tractor anymore. Don’t really miss them, though I’m told European cabovers have much better noise and riding characteristics than ours did.
There were a few attempts to market Duetz diesels as motive power here, but they never really caught on.
Modern European cabovers are as quiet and comfortable as sitting in your lounge room, lovely to drive except for the autoshift transmissions some are equipped with DAFs Ive driven lately have been 18 speed RR equipped but they also come with the same 12 speed dual clutch auto shift Scanias have which I dont like so much,
Those Fiat trucks are tough as nails.
The Mercedes L series is still in production in Iran.
Thank you thank you! This has to be CC of the year, to date (no offense to all the other great contributors). Many of these names and faces I recognize from European picture books or Marklin or Wiking toy catalogs I drooled over as a kid here in the States. Never heard of Barkas, however.
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing. I never get tired of looking at old trucks and thinking of the folks who made a living driving them,
We had most of those in Israel too, so to me they are familiar faces, so to speak. The difference is, back then you had equal numbers of European, British and American trucks. Nowadays it mostly Europeans… Same max length rules in Israel as the EU, so a US conventional does not make sense.
There you, go, a Scania-Vabis at the Haifa port about to unload some agricultural produce to be exported to… Sweden (pic: Hanan Sadè, Harvard U Israel Archives).
… and a newer 110 with Israeli made Dodge Power Wagon derivatives (pic: Israel Haramaty, same source as my previous post).
I had many rides in a conventional Scania 85 4×2 bulk hauler, IIRC it was a 1974 truck, and a 1980 Scania 111 6×2 grain tipper; a COE with a daycab, like in your picture. 110 = first gen with an 11 liter engine, 111 = second gen (more an update) with an 11 liter engine. The thirth gen (82-112-142) were entirely new trucks.
… and lest we forget, the competition, this one imported as 6X2, not typical for tractor units in Israel (pic by I. Haramaty):
Fascinating stuff and great observations – very nice to our European friends give these “hard workers” some well deserved TLC.
Great stuff as always Johannes. It is interesting to see the older stuff, I still occaisionally see M-B L-series trucks and the later Scania.
I saw an ex-military MAN like the one above on the tv show “Outback Truckers”; it was based at Birdsville in outback Queensland and fitted out as a recovery vehicle with a roll-back tray for picking up dead 4x4s. On the show he had to head west approximately 45 miles to collect a Land Rover 130 twin-cab pickup and 4 guys, including crossing the largest dune “Big Red”, approx 130′ high of soft sand on a 80% gradient – fully loaded!
MAN is one of those old and renowned specialists in building excellent on/off-road trucks. Their Ponton-Kurzhauber was fully on a par with the Mercedes-Benz L-series and the Magirus-Deutz Eckhauber, in all aspects. I don’t know if these were sold in Australia and NZ.
Now their only off-roader is the TGS if equipped for that duty (I don’t know about the TGX)… My favorite off-roader truck is the Volvo FMX, even though Volvo should have given it a new cabin instead of restyling it…
BTW, some useless trivia now: I was looking at the new DAF XF brochure and realized the infotainment is the same one that Opel included in late model Corsa D’s…
WOOD, WOOF, and WOOF! My first time seeing this post. Thanks, Johannes.