1418 Mercedes Benz

The first truck John ever purchased was a second hand 1964 Kenworth, which proved to be a bit of a financial disaster, so the next truck he acquired was a brand new cab-over 1418 LPS Mercedes Benz. It is shown in the picture, below, waiting to be picked up from Lanes Motors in Plummer Street, Port Melbourne. This particular truck was one of the last of 1418 cab overs, they were being replaced by the then new V-series. The white and green truck and the tan truck are both V-series. All these photographs were taken in the mid 1970s.

John Finnerty, salesman, with John Arnold.

Working for Vaughans. Above and below, taken near West Wyalong, whilst en route to Brisbane.

Taken near Glen Inness, also en route to Brisbane.

Working for Complete Auto Transit, CATS. Taken on the Newell Highway.

John still working for CATS.

Taken in Lidcombe in Sydney, in the driveway of Ford's manufacturing plant. Trailer built by Helmut Runge Engineering,

Truck painted up in Clark Sheilds Transport colours.

Car carrier unit modified to carry eight cars.

Taken at Strathmerton.

More photographs of this car carrier can be seen here.

HCVC Ballarat Branch Clunes Truck Show 2011 - Part 2

This is part 2 of our pictures taken at the Clunes Truck show, held on March 13, by the Ballarat Branch of the Historic Commercial Vehicle Club. It was a fantastic day. Shown in this post are trucks from Ford to Volvo. Click here to go to my first post which shows all the trucks from AECs to Fargo.

This is our Volvo, the only one on display. It's a great looking truck (and I can say that because this is my blog)

Thornycroft Amazon owned by Terry Burrows.

Thames

I hadn't seen a Republic before, until we visited Merv Brunt's collection at Colac and he had three on display. Click here if you want to see photographs of Merv's Republics.

A Peterbilt.

An Oshkosh. Before I got into old trucks I used to think Oshkosh was just a range of children's clothing, but know I know they are also trucks. Oshkosh first started making trucks in 1917 as the Wisconsin Duplex Auto Company and in 1918 moved to the town of Oshkosh and changed their name to Oshkosh Motor Truck Manufacturing Company. According to their website they are one of the world's leading defence vehicle manufacturers. In case you are wondering the town of Oshkosh was named after Oshkosh the Menominee Chief (1795-1858). The name means "claw" or "nail" or "horny part of foot of beasts or birds".

Two neat Morris Commercials, above and below.

The only Mercedes Benz on display - a 1418. It looked fantastic. This truck plus our Volvo and the little Citroen van shown in the first post took the European truck count to three.

This is an R-model Mack.

There were three B-model Macks on show, the one above belongs to Rod Calleja, who also displayed his Diamond REO.

Two more B-model Macks.

Two W-model Kenworths.

Vyn Harris and son Simon came up from Drouin in their 1980 Kenworth.

Another W-model Kenworth.

International Transtar.

There were four International R190s on show. John has a soft spot for these trucks as the first full-time Interstate truck he ever drove was an R190. He drove it for MacFies. He had driven interstate before this, but on 'relay' where a truck had more one driver, but the R190 was his first truck of his own. John says the R190s were the King of the Road in the early to mid 1960s.

Two other great looking R190s.

This R190 had a twin steer K7 on the back, which attracted a lot of attention.

International R180.

Inter C1800 with a Cummins engine.

Inter AS130.

ACCO with a V8 GM 'fuel pincher' engine.

Jailbar Ford.

Ford F700.

Don McGregor's 1960 Ford F500.

Russell Marshall's 1941 Ford, in a line-up of other 1940 vehicles.

Ford F250 and a Dodge.

More Fords on differing ages and models, above and the next five photos below.

This unrestored Ford attracted a lot of interest. It just shows that restored or unrestored - it doesn't matter, every truck is interesting in it's own way and has a story behind it.

If you want to see the rest of our Clunes photographs (AEC's to Fargo) then click here.