WORKINGS CLASSICS STOP AND STEYR

Growing up in the 1970 and 1980s, there were lots of unusual lorries that were sold only in Europe; names like Saurer, Berna, Büssing, Pegaso, Steyr and Unic to name just a few. For a young enthusiast, as I was in the early 1980s, I’d only see examples of them occasionally in the UK, and only if I was really lucky. And sadly, I never photographed them as I couldn’t afford to ‘run’ a camera at the time, with the cost of film and developing.

Of course, some of these rarities did make it over here operated by companies from their native countries such as Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Germany and France. Other marques such as Saviem, Berliet and Magirus Deutz did sell over here – with varying degrees of success, but many of these makes were lost in the 1980s as they were either taken over or closed down.

But in the late 1980s, some of these manufacturers actually attempted UK sales attacks. This meant offering right hand drive models of course, but Pegaso and Steyr both came to the UK market from 1988. But they were short-lived, many because both firms were taken over; Pegaso by Iveco and Steyr by MAN. But their legacy-if you can call it that – was there were at least some RHD examples, and