Leyland Motors Limited was a British vehicle manufacturer of lorries and buses. It gave its name to the
British Leyland Motor Corporation formed when it merged with
British Motor Holdings, later to become
British Leyland after effectively becoming nationalised.
British Leyland later changed its name to simply
BL, then in 1986
Rover Group.
History
Beginning
Leyland Motors has a long history dating from 1896, when the Sumner and Spurrier families founded the Lancashire Steam Motor Company in the town of
Leyland in North West England. The company's first vehicle was a 1.5-ton-capacity steam powered van. By 1905 they had also begun to build petrol-engined wagons. The Lancashire Steam Motor Company was renamed
Leyland Motors in 1907 when they took over Coulthards of Preston. They also built a second factory in the neighbouring town of Chorley which still remains today as the headquarters of the LEX leasing and parts company.
In 1920
Leyland Motors produced the
Leyland 8 luxury touring car, a development of which was driven by J.G. Parry-Thomas at Brooklands. Parry-Thomas was later killed in an attempt on the land speed record when a chain drive broke. At the other extreme, they also produced the Trojan Utility Car in the Kingston on Thames factory from 1922 to 1928.
Three generations of Spurriers controlled
Leyland Motors from its foundation until the retirement of Sir Henry Spurrier in 1964. Sir Henry inherited control of
Leyland Motors from his father in 1942, and successfully guided its growth during the postwar years. Whilst the Spurrier family were in control the company enjoyed excellent labour relations—reputedly never losing a day's production through industrial action.
World War 2
During the war,
Leyland Motors along with most vehicle manufacturers was involved in war production.
Leyland built the Cromwell tank at its works from 1943 as well as medium/large trucks such as the
Leyland Hippo and Retriever.
After the war,
Leyland Motors continued military manufacture with the Centurion tank.
Post war
In 1946, AEC and
Leyland Motors worked to form the British United Traction Ltd.
In 1955, through an equity agreement, manufacture of commercial vehicles under licence from
Leyland Motors commenced in Madras, India at the new Ashok factory. The products were branded as Ashok
Leyland.
On the other hand,
Leyland Motors acquired other companies in the post war years:
* 1951: Albion Motors
* 1953: Collaboration with Danish Automobile Building (DAB), a bus manufacturer, later with a majority stake in the 1970s
* 1955: Scammell Lorries Ltd—military and specialist lorry manufacturer
* 1960: Standard Triumph, cars, vans and some agricultural machinery interests
* 1962: Associated Commercial Vehicles (ACV), which incorporated AEC, Thornycroft, Park Royal Vehicles and Charles H. Roe. Then
Leyland Motors was renamed
Leyland Motor Corporation
* 1965: Minority (25%) interests in Bristol Commercial Vehicles and Eastern Coach Works
* 1967: Rover cars
Donald Stokes took over as head of the company in 1964 and in 1968 it merged with
British Motor Holdings (
BMH) to form the
British Leyland Motor Corporation (
BLMC).
BMH brought with it more famous British goods vehicle and bus and coach marques, including Daimler, Guy, BMC, Austin and Morris into the new organization.
British Leyland era
The
BLMC group was difficult to manage because of the many companies under its control, often making similar products. This, and other reasons, led to financial difficulties and in December 1974
British Leyland had to receive a guarantee from the British government.
In 1975, after the publication of the Ryder Report,
BLMC nationalised as
British Leyland (
BL) and split into 4 divisions with the bus and truck production becoming the
Leyland Truck & Bus division within the Land Rover
Leyland Group. This division was split into
Leyland Bus and
Leyland Trucks in 1981. In 1986
BL changed its name to
Rover Group. The equity stake in Ashok
Leyland was controlled by Land Rover
Leyland International Holdings, and sold in 1987.
Leyland name post-British Leyland
Buses
The bus operations were divested as a management buy-out to form
Leyland Bus, and was subsequently bought by Volvo Buses in 1988, which discontinued most of its product range.
Trucks
* 1987 The
Leyland Trucks division of
Rover Group (formerly
BL) merged with DAF Trucks of The Netherlands, and was floated on the Dutch stock exchange as DAF NV. The new company traded as
Leyland DAF in the UK, and as DAF elsewhere.
* 1993 DAF NV went into bankruptcy. The UK truck division was bought through a management buy-out and became
Leyland Trucks. The van division was also bought through a management buy-out and became LDV Limited. The Spare Parts Operation (Multipart) was also subject to a management buy-out before eventually becoming part of the LEX organisation.
* 1998
Leyland Trucks was acquired by the US truck manufacturer PACCAR.
Leyland Trucks now operates as a division of PACCAR from the
Leyland Assembly Plant in North West England manufacturing around 14,000 trucks per year of which about a third are sold in the EU.
Products
Buses
Historically,
Leyland Motors was a major manufacturer of buses used in the United Kingdom and worldwide. It achieved a number of firsts or milestones that set trends for the bus industry. It was one of the first manufacturers to devise chassis designs for buses that were different to trucks with a lower chassis level to help passengers to board; and its chief designer John George Rackham, who had experience at the Yellow Coach Company in Chicago before returning to England, created the Titan and Tiger ranges in 1927 that revolutionised bus design. After 1945, it created another milestone with the trend-setting Atlantean rear-engined double-decker bus design produced between 1956 and 1986.
Trucks
1920s
* Q-type 4 ton
* SQ2 7 ton
* SWQ2 10 ton six-wheeler
* Bull
1930s
* Beaver
* Bison
* Buffalo
* Bull
* Hippo
* Octopus 22 ton eight-wheeler
* Steer
* Lynx
* Cub
* Badger
1940s
* Comet
* Hippo
* Beaver
1960s
*
Leyland 90
* Beaver
* Comet
* Steer
* FG
1970s
* Terrier
* Boxer
* Clydesdale
* Marathon
The Marathon was
Leyland's answer to the booming "max cap" truck fad at the start of the 1970s. Imports such as the Volvo F88 and Scania 110/140 were selling very well in the UK due to the previously unheard of levels of driver comfort, reliability, quality and performance.
Leyland had insufficient money for development of a complete new vehicle at the time, so designers were instructed to utilise as many existing in-house components as possible. It was perceived at the time that the resulting model would be a stopgap until the new T45 range was ready for production toward the latter half of the 1970s.
The cab was a re-worked version of the "Ergomatic" tilt cab of 1965, heavily modified with different lower panels, raised height etc, and was available in day and sleeper cab form. Engines were decided from the outset to be in the higher power category to be competitive with rival vehicles, the only existing engine within the
Leyland empire suitable for such an application following the demise of the ill-fated fixed-head 500 series was the AEC AV760 straight-six, which was turbocharged and designated the TL12. Other engine options included a 200bhp
Leyland L11, Cummins 10 and 14 litre engines at 250/330 bhp.
Production began in 1973, and various shortcomings were noted, including below par heating and ventilation, and pronounced cab roll. however roadtesters of the time were very impressed by the truck's power and performance. In 1977 the "Marathon 2" was launched, an updated and revised vehicle that attempted to address some of the previous criticisms of the earlier vehicle. Relatively few Marathons of all types were sold before production ended in 1979 with the introduction of the T45 "roadtrain" range of vehicles.
1980s
* Roadrunner
This was
Leyland's answer to the Ford cargo in the non-HGV 7.5 ton truck sector. Launched in 1984, it utilised a
Leyland straight-six engine until 1986 when a 5.9L Cummins was introduced. It was notable at the time for its low level passenger side windscreen, featured as a safety aid to enable the driver to see the kerb, although this was deleted on later models. The basic cab had a long service life, becoming later on the
Leyland DAF 45.
* T45 Roadtrain
The
Leyland Roadtrain was a range of heavy goods vehicle tractor units manufactured by
Leyland Trucks between 1980 and 1990. The nomenclature "T45" refers to the truck range design as a whole and encompasses models such as the lightweight 7.5 ton roadrunner, Freighter (4 wheel rigid truck) constructor (multi axle rigid tipper or mixer chassis-its chassis owing much to the outgoing Scammell 8-wheeler Handyman) and Cruiser (basic spec low weight tractor unit). The Roadtrain itself was a max weight model with distance work in mind.
The cab design was a joint effort between
Leyland, BRS and Ogle Design and was seen as the height of modernity when compared with its predecessors, the idea being to have one basic design to replace the various different outgoing models (for example, the Bathgate built G cab on the Terrier, the Ergomatic cabbed Lynx, Beaver etc). This did indeed make good economic sense, however there has been speculation that
Leyland did in fact alienate a number of customers who had traditionally purchased other marques from within the
Leyland empire—Albion, AEC, Scammell, etc.—who were now left with no alternative but to have a
Leyland branded vehicle or purchase from elsewhere.
Throughout its production run engine choices included the AEC-based TL12, a straight carry over from the preceding "stopgap" model Marathon range, The Rolls-Royce Eagle 265/300 and the Cummins 290 L10 and 14-litre 350 coupled to a Spicer or Eaton transmission, although all versions produced a distinctive whine from the propshaft knuckle joint when approaching 60 mph (97 km/h). The TL12 engine was dropped early on in the production run, most large fleet buyers choosing the Rolls-Royce engine.
The Roadtrain was available in day and sleeper cabbed form, in high and low datum versions—this refers to the cab height—high datum versions were intended as long haul vehicles with higher mounted cabs and more internal space. 6x2 versions were built in high cab form only on a chassis that was basically that of the ageing Scammell trunker.
In 1986 the high roofed Roadtrain interstate was introduced, a top of the range long distance truck with standing room inside.
The Roadtrain was a common sight throughout most of the 1980s, with a great many of the major fleet users in the UK such as Tesco, Blue Circle (unusually with high datum day cabs) and BRS running them. The Firm of Swain's based at Rochester in Kent had a number of roadtrains in its fleet which enjoyed a comparatively long service life (up until the late 1990s) before being replaced by the newer DAF 85.
Production ended in 1990 with the sale of
Leyland Trucks to Dutch firm DAF, although as a postscript DAF relaunched the model in low datum form (it was already manufacturing the large DAF 95) as the DAF 80, using the Roadtrain cab with the DAF 330 ATi engine (quite ironic, given that this engine had its roots in the
Leyland O.680). This model was produced for a relatively short time until 1993 with the launch of the brand new cabbed DAF 85.
Due partly to the cab's propensity to rust and also to the admittedly short life of commercial vehicles, any Roadtrain in commercial operation is now a very rare sight indeed, although a small number of vehicle remain in use throughout the country as recovery vehicles.
The army made use of an 8x6 version of Roadtrain as a hook loader until recently. This is known to the British Army as DROPPS, Demountable rack offload and pickup system which has seen action Iraq and Afghanistan and are still in service, due to be replaced by MAN version.
Diesel Multiple Units
* British Rail British United Traction
* Pacer (train)
* British Rail Class 155
12:21 AM
Goohara
