Heritage Commercials Magazine - capturing the spirit of vintage days

Classic Truck - September 2011

Neil Hamilton’s involvement with restoring Scammells has spanned three of these magnificent vehicles starting in 1981 with an R100, the civilian version of the Pioneer. This was followed by a 1942, ex-Pickford’s vehicle that he purchased from Wolverhampton, which has since been passed on to another enthusiast, Les Ward. This was mentioned in the June 2010 article in Heritage Commercials concerning Les’s other Scammell, his newly completed Pioneer of the same type.

Finally there was the Junior Constructor which he acquired from another fellow enthusiast and a close friend, Cedric Rothwell, who had decided that this was no longer suitable for his heavy vehicle recovery operations. Neil was keen on owning the Junior Constructor from the day that he first saw it. This was when he helped Cedric tow it home, an occasion that turned out to be somewhat of a trial by ordeal after Neil and Cedric arrived in the village of Belmont in the Pennines.

“It had been Cedric’s intention to tow out the Junior Constructor with an old Dodge dustcart which had been converted to a recovery vehicle, but no chance. It ended up the other way round, with the Dodge on the end of a tow bar as the Scammell steadily pushed it along uphill. I told Cedric that I would be interested should he ever wish to sell this lorry, and some months later, he turned up in my newsagent’s shop with the message that it was for sale, if I was still interested. Usually of a most sunny disposition, Cedric looked very glum when I spoke to him later on. It turned out that his landlord had thrown him out owing to the noise made by the old Scammell!”

Further indicating Neil’s dedication to the commercial vehicle restoration world, he was one of the founder members of the Friends of the British Commercial Vehicle Museum in Leyland, and he already had a pair of double-decker buses on his hands at the time, a Leyland PD1 and a PD2.

So how does this 1986 Scammell Roadtrain now come into the picture you may ask. For such a large vehicle, it came as a surprise to report that buying it was Neil’s response to the sort of disability that we all come to expect in later years. Neil suffers from back, knee and leg issues, which prompted the sale of the Pioneer and the Junior Constructor (the two buses having been sold long ago).

Also subject to a parting of the ways was a Volvo FL10 that had been used with a low-loader to haul the old Scammells around. However, as the Volvo was fitted with a ‘Geartronic’ automatic gearbox, it gave Neil an idea as to how he could still own and drive a classic heavy goods vehicle as well as filling the large, vacant shed where the Scammells had been maintained. The only fly in the ointment was that classic HGVs with an automatic gearbox aren’t two a penny, as it is  a fairly modern innovation.

Neil continued: “My search brought me to a haulage yard in Lincolnshire where a Leyland Roadtrain which had an automatic gearbox was offered for sale. Sadly, this didn’t stack up to what I would call or describe as a good buy. However, the chap who owned this company had operated a number of Roadtrains and he then steered me towards a Scammell badged Roadtrain, which didn’t seem like a suitable alternative to me at all, as this had the usual manual gearbox. I reported that I wasn’t interested, although he followed this up saying that this Scammell had a twin-splitter gearbox, which allowed you to run up and down the 12-speed rev range with minimal use of the clutch pedal. So we then took the Scammell out for a run through the countryside, and I could immediately see this set-up was a suitable alternative to using an automatic gearbox. By carefully using the splitter gearbox, and getting the revs just right, you could change up and down perfectly, with the four splitter positions offering three gears each.”

This was one of the Scammell Roadtrains built at the firm’s long established home in Watford rather than one that came off the production line in Leyland, where both Leyland and Scammell badged Roadtrains were being produced. This 6x2 artic tractor came with a Cummins, Big Cam, 14-litre engine that had been reconditioned and upgraded later on in its working life together with the Eaton twin-splitter gearbox and Kirksall heavy-duty rear axle which had been installed by the previous owner, Kevin Dennis. The cab was non-original, being an upgrade to the taller standing ‘Interstate’ type, of which Neil reported about only 180 had been sold by the time production finished.

Neil remarked: “I was amazed by how well this worked out for me, as it really cut down on how much effort I had to put in with my right leg when driving the Scammell. As a matter of course the air brake system was overhauled, and a mechanism was fitted beside the steering wheel so I could apply extra pressure to the brake pedal, should it be needed, by pressing down on it using my right hand. I asked Millers Recovery of Longton, near Preston, to do this work, and like all restorations there was a lot more to do than anticipated. The company makes all its own recovery vehicles and has superb engineers, and know all about Scammells having operated them in the past. John Miller and Tommy Sutcliffe went through the vehicle to prepare it for a test inspection with their usual thoroughness. Right or wrong is the only way they look at things, and if it’s wrong it’s changed – they always demand the very highest standards.”

As Neil wanted to add a ballast body box to this former artic tractor, Tommy was allotted this additional task, which may appear to be straightforward, but not on this occasion. Neil’s requirements were rather unusual – in fact very unusual. The proposal was to build a set of side doors in the nearside of the ballast box so that they swung open to reveal a specially adapted Lawnflite lawn mower that he now uses to travel about show sites. This machine offers better off-road ability and also improved ground clearance than would be achievable with his disability scooter.

How to raise and lower the machine into and out of the ballast box was then answered by fitting a small, hydraulically powered crane with a side swing arm that previously saw service on a lorry used for delivering heavy gas bottles. A canvas top was added to seal off the top of the ballast box, which can easily be removed whenever the crane hoists the garden tractor in or out of the hidden location.

Neil finished off with the following observations and compliments for those who made the work possible: “Buying this lorry has been a huge success, I love driving it as, bearing in mind my knee and leg problems, it is a very easy drive. We put three tonnes of steel in the back to weigh down the rear springs and chassis, and I guess it would be advisable to add another three tonnes for an easier ride and better balance. I always insist on the highest standard of maintenance and John Miller always provides the very highest standards of service that you could expect anywhere.

“All the paintwork was done by Centurion Blast Cleaning Services of Leyland. Even though I always use the colour blue for all my lorries, this was also insisted upon by the people at Centurion who did the chassis gritblasting and numerous other tasks before preparing it for the respray by Russ Doyle and Alan Busby. Alan couldn’t believe his eyes when I turned up in the Scammell, as he had sprayed one of these up for the Leyland factory when it was being prepared for the annual Commercial Vehicle Show in 1987, so it seemed appropriate to use the same mid-blue with a contrasting white colour scheme.”