Heritage Commercials Magazine - capturing the spirit of vintage days

Comment - October 2010

Firstly I was disappointed to find that we didn’t actually have a copy of issue one. I suppose this shouldn’t have surprised me as Mortons weren’t actually the publishers back then. The earliest one we’ve actually got in stock, according to our back issues website, is issue number 008. I thought I’d go and get a copy but when I got down there I found we only had one copy, and not wishing to deprive a collector of it, I grabbed another that we had plenty of. This was the issue for November/December 1987 – it was bi-monthly back then.

One of the biggest differences, obviously, was the name, as the magazine was originally called ‘The Vintage Commercial Vehicle Magazine’. The other thing that struck me was the lack of colour photos – in fact there are only four in the whole magazine (well five if you include the London Transport bus on the cover). This was the other thing that really caught my attention with these early issues - the amount of buses (and steam vehicles) featured. However, there were some really solid articles, including a couple by the much-respected Nick Baldwin.

The magazine didn’t change its name to Heritage Commercials until a while after Mortons took over and decided to give it a revamp. This was issue 145, January 2002, when Pete Kelly was at the helm.

By the way, for those who remember the magazine that far back, Pete is very well and has recently retired. I first met him when I became deputy editor of HC back in September 2008, when he was the editor of our Tractor magazine. Shortly afterwards he moved on to become editor of one of our motorcycle titles, which is very fitting as he started his career as a journalist on a motorbike magazine. He’s now freelance writing (and still riding a big Triumph motorbike!) and he’s got a few articles in the pipeline for HC. So watch out for a real treat soon!

Stephen Pullen
Editor