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.

Our trucks

These are our trucks. The Volvo is an N1025 model, which john purchased new in 1976. He worked it until 2005 when we retired the truck. His work truck is now a NH 12 Volvo (so that means he has owned the first and the last of the N-series in Australia) The Benz is a 1974 1418, which we got two years ago. We ( I say we, but in reality John does all the work) have since taken a lot of stuff off it - old bits of wiring, bits of metal etc and have repainted the chassis - a gleaming black. Next job is to re-do the cabin - all we need is money and to decide what colour. You may guess that we have a 'collection policy' when it comes to trucks - European Highway trucks of the 1970s.