Worcestershire-based Mark Ricketts is well-known in the lorry preservation and restoration movement. In fact, regular CVC readers may recognise the name, as we featured his Scammell Crusader restoration a few years ago. This, however, was a far more ambitious restoration. What’s more, and this isn’t meant in any way as a criticism of the Crusader which was always intended to replicate a working lorry, this one has been completed to a far higher standard.
First, though, a little model history. As is well-known, Seddon were the somewhat surprising victor in the battle to acquire Atkinson, beating off rival bids from both ERF and Foden. The two businesses came together from Jan 1 1971 to form Seddon Atkinson Vehicles Ltd., but for the first three years both constituents continued making their own products, and it wasn’t until 1975, by which time the combined business had been acquired by International Harvester, that the first merged product appeared. This
