Thread: Interesting, Odd or Funny Pics II.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Good point. Just blew up the pic and it was 'espresso', so my bad.

Blew it up? So you now have coffee stains all over the floor, walls, ceiling, windows & yerself?

Originally Posted by p38arover

We used to go to a coffee shop in Penrith in the late 60s, drink cappuccinos, and listen to folk and pop music, e.g., The Seekers, Peter, Paul, and Mary, etc. On Friday and Saturday nights there would be a guitarist playing live folk music. No dancing, though.

The music was Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Tommy Steel, Connie Francis and very young Cliff and Elvis.

Big tyres, plenty of articulation and a thirst to rival an Antonov, can take you almost anywhere on terra firma.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Big tyres, plenty of articulation and a thirst to rival an Antonov, can take you almost anywhere on terra firma.

What are the chances they have Power Steering?

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Big tyres, plenty of articulation and a thirst to rival an Antonov, can take you almost anywhere on terra firma.

George Scammell and Nephew like many small firms with an engineering rather than a marketing background had some extremely good ideas but never achieved sufficient market share to have the necessary funds for development. Those strange looking "sideways" double reduction diffs were brilliant and almost totally reliable. The fibreglass Michelotti cab was trouble free, quiet, comfortable but looked bloody odd. The monster diffs fitted to the Contractor were the ultimate in heavy haulage axles. They came in 24, 30, 40, and 100 ton ratings.Then they were taken over and dragged into the Leyland, BMC, BLMC mire.

I only ever saw photos of the few specials they built for the Royal Engineers for tank recovery. I would have been delighted to actually touch one and go for a ride. An 8 x 4 on 14.00 x 24 tyres, cab big enough to take the recovery crew and the tankers, bunks, cooking facility, etc. Designed to winch up on its back a Chieftain tank and drive away. Can you imagine the smell in the cab of a team of unwashed pommie swaddies living in it and cooking egg and chips in an atmosphere thick with Woodbine smoke.

The Brisbane City Council operated one of these ex-WW ll Scammells, as a tram and bus recovery unit. It wes based at the Light Street bus depot in the early 80s and later ended up on display at the Ferny Grove tram museum. Last time I saw it, it was in storage at the museum.

My late F in L drove one as did others amongst many other tasks [as used by REME Recovery] behind the beaches of Normandy. Guns, Vehicles of every sort he worked on them.


I used to have a rare photo of him in action but as cameras then were a bit of a rarity on the beaches & over the years it has gone AWOL.