BUS RECOVERY

Derby-based Trent Motor Traction Co. was another company to buy an ex-Army Militant, creating a recovery truck, fleet number A16, almost unrecognisable as the original AEC product after a radical make-over. The all-white Militant had been created using bus bodywork and was professionally styled, by the workshop team, under the ‘National’ bus company logo and livery. It still retained some of the heavyweight, no-nonsense look of the Militant chassis. It is now preserved in red and cream livery and rallied regularly, towing a showman’s living wagon.

One of the more unusual examples of bus recovery tractors was the AEC Majestic, a three-axle chassis mainly built for the export market, along with the Mogul; names borrowed from the Maudslay marque. Derby Passenger Transport Executive used an AEC Majestic six-wheel recovery tractor in their fleet with the well-thought-out number RV1. It was bought from Wreckers International, a well-known and respected conversion company who had acquired the chassis, built it into a recovery vehicle and sold it to Derby PTE in 1976. Registered VTC 733H, it spent a good deal of its life on the bus company’s 040 CH trade plates; fitted with a twin-boom three-ton recovery crane, it was still on front-line duty in 1982, with some reports suggesting it wasn’t pensioned-off until 2007.

A similar AEC Majestic or Mogul breakdown, of 1966 vintage, located in Bradford, was offered for sale in the October 1999 edition of Classic and Vintage Commercials Magazine for £5,500. Powered by