Vehicle bodies are indispensable for the transportation industry. Vehicle manufacturers generally only offer chassis with cabs, while the necessary bodies, trailers and semi-trailers are supplied by vehicle construction companies.
Ackermann from Wuppertal has not only made a name for itself with beautifully designed panel bodies, but also with a wide range of innovative products. Markus Hügle has researched everything Ackermann has had to offer in the almost 150 years of its existence in his company history. Part 1 deals with the beginnings up to the post-war period, parts 2 and 3 describe the period up to the 1970s and part 4 the last era up to the takeover by the US company Fruehauf and the bitter end in 1996.
Skill at the wheel of a truck is the theme of the "Lorry Driver of the Year" competition, which was held in England every year since after the Second World War. In our report, the authentic photos are particularly fascinating. The photographers from the magazine "Commercial Motor" were out and about at the event site in Birmingham in 1960 to take pictures of the competitors and their vehicles, which have long since become classics. Looking at the old black and white photos, we feel transported back to a bygone era.
Airfield vehicles are specially designed for use at airports. They perform various tasks on the airfield to ensure the safety and supply of aircraft and passengers. Anyone who does not have to deal with them professionally or is about to embark on an air journey hardly ever sees these vehicles. That's because they are hardly ever on the road.
In our article, we take a look at the airfield vehicles of recent decades: aircraft tractors, special tankers, baggage and catering transporters, as well as buses that can only be found on the airfield, plus huge fire trucks that help save lives in the event of a disaster. From a multitude of photos, we have selected the most interesting ones. The captions reveal some of the details we researched about the individual vehicles.
Today they are rare, but in earlier times they used to enrich the street scene: vehicles that served solely as advertising. The advertising vehicles were on the road, for example, with a body in the form of a baby carriage, a rolling shop window, and moving bottles of various contents. Most of them were based on truck or bus chassis, but there were also smaller variants on passenger car chassis. Their time has long since passed, supplanted by television and the Internet.
FTF, the Dutch manufacturer of trucks and special vehicles, was known for individual solutions in the construction of particularly heavy units. When container traffic became established internationally, methods had to be developed in a short time to transport the standardized large containers in the port. Europe's first container terminal was built in Rotterdam in 1966. FTF supplied the tractor units with which trailer trains up to 330 feet long could be moved in the port area. In this article, Niels Jansen from Bergen in North Holland describes how the development progressed and what has become of some of the FTF port tractors.
Cyprus, like Malta, was a British colony for almost a century. It is therefore not surprising that relics from this era are still present on the island. For truck enthusiasts, it is the old English trucks that arouse interest. It may be that there are not many of these veteran vehicles left in the meantime. But about twenty years ago, truck spotting on Cyprus was still quite worthwhile. Christoph Büch from Berlin had a look around Cyprus in 2003 and shows some of his finds in this article.
In Cuba, in addition to numerous cars, there are many commercial vehicles from the 1950’s on the road, built in the USA, the former Eastern Bloc, Asia and Europe. Our article is about vintage trucks built with unique bus bodies. All over Cuba they chug from place to place, often lovingly restored and lavishly painted. Alongside regular buses they play an important role in passenger transport on the approximately 777-mile-long Caribbean island.
A manageable chapter from international truck history is commercial vehicles produced in Scotland. The Argyle Motor Manufacturing Company from East Kilbride in the West of the country, about 15 kilometers from Glasgow, was an example of Scotland's share of British commercial vehicle production. But after just a few years, what had barely begun came to an end. After all, 25 units left the Argyle plant. In the meantime, half a century has passed and Richard Stanier from Stoke-on-Trent takes a look back at a hopeful beginning and the sudden end.
