THE TIN CAB STRIKES BACK
It was like a breath of fresh air. To this young wagon nut in far off Geordie Land, the first fleeting look - in the eagerly awaited weekly arrival of Commercial Motor – of the newly announced Scammell Contractor just blew my socks off. As a big fan of almost anything with a Scammell badge on the front (although that passion was never really transferred to the three wheel Scarabs even though British Rail’s Consett station was a big user of them) I could hardly believe what the production team in distant Watford had done in creating such a dreamy looking heavyweight.
In truth, I was still getting used to the early ‘60s Michelotti cabs on Scammell’s general haulage models of Handyman, Trunker and Routeman. Of course the industry had never seen anything like these finned ‘cheese grater’ type cabs although my biggest problem was in knowing how to pronounce – never mind spell – the name of this classy Italian designer.
But this ‘Crinklie’ was forgotten about once I’d seen the new Contractor. I’d always been a big fan of the so called LAD cab and for Scammell to take this and blend it into something so big then – wow. Yes, this new 6x4 was my favourite model of all time – well right up until the subsequent announcement of their crew cab version of this big tractor a year or two later. Well when you see the two motors side-by-side you can’t really blame me for jumping ship. But more than 50
