A cache of Commers | Classic Commer & Karrier lorries & vans of the 1930s - 1970s
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ธ.ค. 2021
- A collection of Commer & Karrier lorry, van, breakdown truck, coach, camper and ex-military vehicle photos make up this video. If classic British lorries, and Commers/Karriers in particular, are your particular interest, then hopefully there'll be something in this selection of interest.
The vehicles range from the 1930s and 1940s, into the post-war 1950s and through into the 1970s, by which time the writing was on the wall for Commer and Karrier-badged vehicles within the Rootes Group (later Chrysler) empire.
Many of the Commers were seen at vintage vehicle shows, classic lorry road runs, and also in museums, while a few were caught on camera "at rest" in whichever hedge, field or barn they'd been left in many years previously.
Being keen on old lorries it was no hardship to spend hours trawling through folders of photos going back 15+ years, in order to put this collection together. The majority of the Commers and Karriers are shown in civilian hands, but a number clearly were built with military service in mind - especially the charismatic Q4s, the militarised cousin to the bonnetted civilian Superpoise lorries of the 1950s. Smaller vehicles here include the Commer Cob van, the forward-control PB, the Commer Imp van, and the super-rare Express Delivery van of the mid-1950s.
To see all the videos now on the channel, many of which relate to commercial vehicles from days gone by, please visit the following page:
/ oldclassiccarrj
Thanks, RJ.
#commer #britishlorries #classiclorries - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
Hi, thanks for watching, a full list of the videos on the channel is here:
th-cam.com/users/oldclassiccarRJvideos
Channel homepage:
th-cam.com/channels/KaTg9fPUvmUQi94FcnDbrg.html
Thanks for video. The same Commer as PBR 806 at 137 was the first Commer I drove. I was about 18 years old at the time. I worked in Brighton at the wholesale fruit and vegetable market unloading spud lorries at night. The lorries were the same TS3 vehicles. I worked alone and when I had unloaded the lorries I had to put them in the car park and get another one in. I had an ordinary driving licence but before long I was taking liberties and going around Brighton and just driving the lorries. I became a lorry driver after that experience and got a full HGV licence when I was old enough. I loved the feel of these lorries and how smart the cabs were after driving mostly old crates. When I was a bit older I had a job in the summer driving around Kent fruit farms picking up fruit and veg. I am 79 now but I would love to own one of these, the best lorry ever, even after driving all sorts of military vehicles in the army. A real good looking truck, and the roar of that TS3 engine was delightful. Enough of that, thanks again.
Favourite Commer, has to be one from the 50's, just love the style, shape and the big grill, oh and it must, must have the TS3.
Thank you OCC, ..........Closing my eyes I can go back back nigh 60 years, I can still hear the Commer tippers with the TS3 2 stroke diesel, pulling their (over??) loads of wet sand (water running out of the tailboard) up the steep hill to our village, ....once heard that screaming roar is never forgotten ..................as is the Foden 2 stroke - but that's another saga.
I worked at Commer Cars Boscombe Rd Dunstable in the Production Control Office 1965/1967. Saw these lorries and vans being made. The factory has been demolished and houses now occupy the site.
Very nostalgic. The Commer lorries were a distinctive sound. But the Q4 lorry was amazing. My friend joined the TA and was taught to drive in A Q4 and passed his test so that saved him paying for lessons and he was paid to do it. It was incredible using petrol engined lorries in the late 1960s but the War Office wanted to use these old vehicles up and no Bedford for the TA.
Great memories. As a 17 year old learner driver the Karrier was the first vehicle I drove on the road. It belonged to the next door coal merchant who I helped with Saturday deliveries. Later on my first car was a Hillman Imp, fun to drive but had reliability issues with its automatic choke and aluminium engine/gearbox. Happy days.
Loving the Two Stroke’s such good looking trucks👍👍
Love the commer cobs, husky, imps etc
I started lorry driving in 1961 for Lameys Transport Appledore Devon and drove a Commer TS 3 reg number vod 253 absolutely loved it lovely sound from the engine but the real fabulous sight was watching it decoke it self while pushing it flat out at night on the A4 from London to Bristol the site of big lumps of coke hitting the tarmac and exploding was better than any fire work display ever Happy Days thank you for the memories
Lovely classic British cars!
Always loved these. Two stroke ,very distinctive sounding engines. You could tell what they were before you saw them,and the aroma they gave off as they went by..I can just imagine them now.
A quarry company local to us,had a fleet of the two strokes commers... absolutely wonderful xx
Cracking stuff, well done, l owned many commer trucks and vans. Fanfare for a Commer Van should have been the music.
love the wit ! and with a ts3 on song as accompaniment !
When I started as an apprentice with Post Office Engineering Department in 1967 my first posting was with a gang of 3 technicians on overhead & underground construction. We drove around the Bridgend are in a Windsor Green Carrier. Don’t know the model but they were popular with POED around the country. The cab had room for 4 with a fold down table in the passenger area. I spent ages making tea there. The rear goods area had a cross transom near the tail gate and hatches at the front top so we could carry 36 ft poles two at a time. The rear shelving held our tools with a built in ladder rack for 4 ladders, a special shelf of what looked like a load of bobbins and these held the white porcelain line insulters for overhead work. The wagon also had a very strong tow hitch at the back, we used to tow compressors, winches, cable trailers and the occasional Snowcat for radio station work. Haven’t seen a restored one at all.
Peter you have brought back many memories for myself as I joined the post office engineering department (POED) in 1966 and like yourself did the rounds of all the different engineering jobs including being put with the gang in the “Karrier”. I was then employed as a TT(A) or trainee technician apprentice in the Liverpool Telephone Area and undertook different types of work from overhead, underground and internal telephone exchange work.
@@oldevertonianwithloadsofpa6325 Hello. I started as a TT(A) in 1967 in Bridgend, S Wales (part of CARDIFF area). My first few months was with a gang in a Karrier. My foreman had just done an explosives course. Our first job was to put up a pole on the coast. There was bedrock about a foot below the grass, we drilled the rock and put in a charge, Stood back and fired the charge. BOOM, rock everywhere. The T1 said “We should have put a net over it”. I spent rest of the day digging rocks out of the cricket pitch. Great time.
@@petersymonds4975 hello again Peter. I loved the reference to the T1. He sat in the front passenger seat with brown suitcase which was full of time sheets and forms to advise of every problem. I guess you’re a similar age to myself. I’ll be 74 in October and retired work in 2005 as a level 2 manager (the original executive engineer) Great memories. Thanks
The Tilling/Stevens powered trucks are my favourites!
No Tilling Stevens powered vehicles in this line up. Last engine produced by Tilling Stevens was a flat 8 before the war which never went into production. If you are referring to the Rootes TS3 diesel powered Commers, this is a very popular, often quoted misconception which the internet has helped perpetuate - unfortunately. The Rootes TS3 is solely a Rootes product designed to meet a requirement from Commer Trucks for an underfloor diesel to fit the new QX design cab. Do some research... The Rootes Two Stroke 3 Cylinder engine (which is what TS3 actually means) was developed by a small team of 7 under Eric Coy who was Chief Engineer Engines (petrol only) at the Humber Stoke Aldemoor plant in Coventry with preliminary drawings and stress calcuations starting in 1946! You can actually see these documents in this excellent and pretty accurate history of the TS3 development in this TH-cam video here. th-cam.com/video/nYF6FnMrsf0/w-d-xo.html So Rootes started work on the TS3 in 1946...Rootes didnʻt purchase Tilling Stevens until 1950 (!) - and that was for manufacturing space! No way could it be a Tilling Stevens product! It is entirely coincidental that the TS3 was MANUFACTURED at the Tilling Stevens plant at Maidstone. And to put to bed another myth, the Rootes TS3 is not a copy of the Sulzer, Junkers Jumo, French MAP or any other opposed piston two stroke diesel. The engine was designed specifically to fit between the chassis rails and under the cab of the QX design cab. Any copied diesel wouldnʻt have fitted!!! Eric Coy may have copied the CONCEPT of an opposed piston two stroke engine but then no one ever says that any internal combustion petrol engine produced since the late 1800s is a copy of the Nicolaus August Otto and Eugen Langen designed petrol engine of 1876 in Germany so why is it quoted so often that the TS3 is a copy of something???
When I was a wee lad back in the early fifties the quarry my Dad worked at had some Commer forward control tippers but they pre-dated the TS3 engined ones, these had a low comp. version of the Humber Pullman unit. Our first family vehicle was a '39 Commer van (CMR 908) similar to the Hillman 'Tilly', Dad scrapped her in the late fifties because the brakes had 'gone' due to rust. When I asked how he explained that due to the Commer having cable brakes, when they were applied the chassis would flex rather than apply effort to the brake shoes!
The "Imp" van, were called Hillman Imp in Australia, I remember a school chum whose dad had a Commer tip truck in the 1960's and it was powered by a Perkins diesel. Thanks for the memories.
Same in UK with rear engine.
Owned one of these Commers in the day as an owner driver, working on the M53. Very powerful for their size and under load had a sound of their own but overheating was an issue if pushed hard for long periods. Mine was very fuel efficient, running alongside me on the same job were the Morgan brothers running 2 small Bedfords, they are now a very big outfit based on the Wirral. My tipper had an Eaton 2 speed axel with a York trailing axle and a lot of the M53 through Ellesmere Port was built on clay and in the wet I could raise the axle for traction, some days it was like a skating rink and Paddy the sheeps foot driver spent his whole day pushing wagons about. Those were the days.
On my Aunt and Uncles farm in the seventies they had a Karrier Bantam tractor unit and several trailers all ex BR. Great fun to drive.
Great video really enjoyed, as I was a driver in the 60s and 70s on commer 2 /Stroke trucks those were the days no power steering no assisted gearchange on the passenger side of the cab floor carried myropes allsoaked in diesel oil to strengthen them never forget the smell and the noise still can hear it today and I’m in my 70s bring it all back I would do it all again thanks again really enjoyed brought back a lot of memories👍
I prefer the chassis with the cattle truck body rather than the flat bed either way it looks a very good restoration but yes the cattle truck body for me to take home!
My Old Man used to work for BT or GPO as it was when he drove a double cab Karrier MLH 400. He used to tell tales of cooking their dinner on the engine as they were going along given access was within the cab. Given the GPO had loads of these ( think they were 3 1/2 tons) very few seemed to have survived. I know his one fell apart eventually with woodworm because the crew cab was made of timber.
Haha, I remember those Commer (PB) vans very well, everywhere they went there seemed to be a five mile queue of cars stuck behind them. Great photos again, cheers.
hi great video as usual, i remember the army commers in germany when we were with the BOAR, in 1969. we had some 1970s commers when i worked for london transport.open back vehicles in the early 80s
Obviously being ex army I love the military commers. My favourite has to be the huge radio box body signals truck.
Another great video. Thank you.
May have had a hand in building some of those vehicles as was apprenticed to Rootes Group at Commer Cars ( Then recently acquired by Chrysler ) in 1966 . Worked at both Luton factory and Dunstable assembly works.
Stayed with the company through out my working life retiring in 2005.
awesome collection
Thank you for brief descriptions of each photo. It draws you in wondering what's next.
Top 3. Number 1 Commer campervans of any build. Number 2 Commer Karrier Bantam ( I'd like a little horse box / camper bodied one ) Number 3 TS3 engined anything.
Thanks for watching, a few Commers feature in my recent lorries and vans vid recorded at Gaydon
Great collection from the Roots Group products. Bob
During my term in BAOR in the early/mid 70s we had a Q4 with drop sides and instead of a canopy it had what I can only describe as a barn like timber structure on the back resembling US ranch fences. We called it the John Wayne, for obvious reasons.
Lovely photographs, many thanks. My favourite would be the Ecurie Ecosse transporter. (I still have my Corgi model in its box!)
I think most of them look very nice and bar the odd few well restored. One to take home? Well I would probably disapoint most people but being part of the custom scene for many years it would be the last one, the commer cob van. That applies to this collection of photos only of course. Thanks for sharing this video .👍
I worked for a timber merchants in the early 1980's, they had a Karrier Bantam with a flatbed body in their fleet, it was always known as the "Noddy lorry", it was great fun to drive and was capable of quite hard work. If I remember correctly it had a Humber 2,2 litre petrol engine.
I for got to say that I also like the Commercial Imp vans they look really nice and from my past experience of Imp saloons a very useful little car providing you sorted the front suspension to get some negative camber it would fly on local club rallies! If I recall correctly it was registered LHU 457 E the letters are correct but I’m uncertain of the numbers.
My dear fellow I keep looking for the early 1950s Fordson Thames 6 ton topper trucks with the Perkins Psix engine ,the contractor George Wimpey had dozens.
Advice for driving t s 3 .
Wear ear defenders .
Keep the boost gauge over 15 pounds , if it drops below that change down .
Rev to flat out in every gear .
I was just watching an on-board video of driving along in a TS3, a wonderful sound but must have been exhausting for those in the cab :)
Beutifull just beutifull classic truks
One of the first trucks I ever drove , was a Commer Carrier.
Another splendid collection of photos. My favourites have to be the Minx and Husky based light vans.Much more unusual than the BMC and Ford alternatives. I think it might be right that the Karrier brand was reserved for Local Authorities and Government bodies/Gas Boards and the like with Commer aimed at Companies and more commercial use.I remember PB and walk through vans being everywhere.In the early’70s,our school lunches were delivered to our rural primary school in the outskirts of Halifax in council liveried Commer PB vans(always with windows in the sides)in the same shade of pale green as the camper in the photos.If you were unfortunate enough to be suffering from any mental health issues,it was said that you’d be taken away in the green van.Bantams seemed to be in production for decades,probably due to contracts to supply government/councils etc. I can’t think of a Commer/Karrier that I wouldn’t like to own.
Karrier Gamecock and Bantam were intended for different uses to the Commer so the name was not ʻreservedʻ for Local Authorities. Karriers being smaller forward control were more for gully emptiers, rubbish carts (as they were in NZ) and similar uses. The larger Sankey cabbed Commers were built in two ranges - the cheaper single headlight petrol / Perkins powered models (V series) for local authorities, etc (being also badged as Dodges, Fargos and Karriers after 1967 for different markets) and the higher level twin headlight TS3 powered C series for company / transport fleet use, etc.
Several of the Commer Q4 s you call military are in fact auxiliary fire service vehicles and have civilian registrations from new.
Which would I take home? Well, it's tricky as usual with your collections. I'm rather partial to the Walkthrough because my dad used to work on them. I remember playing in them as a 3 year old, 49 years ago...
On the other hand I always thought the Commer PB series of vans were really cool looking although I'm given to understand their handling can be a bit, er, unusual at times. The same goes for a lot of old motors though so I'll let it go.
I've always liked the looks of the Commer BF, the predecessor of the Walkthrough. They were already becoming scarce when I was a kid and by the early 70's were becoming a farly rare sight on the roads. I've got an owner's manual for one somewhere in the bowels of this house. A few years ago (a good few in fact), Practical Classics covered the restoration of that BF minibus. I'm pretty certain it's the best BF I've ever seen. The flowing design of that coachbuilt rear bodywork is just glorious!
Another one I like a lot is the TS-3/Maxiload series. They look as hard as nails and nothing, absolutely nothing sounds like the horizontally-opposed 3 cylinder 6 piston 2-stroke engine in these! As interesting technical layouts go, these really deserve greater recognition. They're a classic example of a manufacturer going out on a limb to try something a bit different which could've gone badly wrong but worked out more or less beautifully. This was an engine which could make a lorry respectably fast given the right gearing.
And last but not least, the Commer Cob and the Imp van. Who wouldn't love these? They're so cute! Very simple and rugged too. Shame they were mostly worked to death , they're seriously rare now.
So these are the ones I'd like to take home. First I need to find funds to buy myself a decent aircraft hangar...
Hi I would like the blue recovery truck
Going back to the 1950/60ts Saffords of Grt Gransden beds ran a fleet of Commer based coaches used to ride on them regular as a child S C Banks Sandy Grain merchant ran a fleet of commers trucks tipper and flats up to the 70ts I loved to hear the TS53 2stroke commer my brother in law Driver mechanic always used to carry a pair of woman`s tight`s in case the fan belt broke oh his TS3 truck as he claimed it would be easier ti fit than replacing the fan belt to get him home
Hi I live in Australia I remember the commer trucks tractor units with the I think 2 stroke engine that had 2 crank shafts you could hear them miles away and I heard they had a flame come from the exhaust pipe at night
They had one crankshaft,
I do like seeing all the old trucks
Is does make me laugh though at the same vehicle can be had with many different badges on it
And how all the trucks shared cabs and other bits
We don’t see any old trucks over here anymore which is quite sad
A lot of the cabs were made by specialist companies, (Briggs, Pressed Steel, Motor Panels etc.) also a lot of the coachbuilding companies built the wooden framed cabs. I remember as a kid seeing army lorries that looked like Commers but had what looked like a painted over Ford Thames badge. I later learned that these were Fords, fitted with the flathead V8 but fitted with cabs by Motor Panels of Coventry as were the Commer.
👍🔥
If anyone ever heard a Commer 2 Stroke on full chat their hearing would be damaged for the rest of their lives. Ask me how I know!
Memories of blue BRS Swindon Commers hauling already rusting 1100 car bodies to Oxford and barking up Faringdon hill 6 feet from people's front doors.
"None Shall Sleep" 🤣
Does someone have an idea of what a '59 TS3 goes for? And what is the, "NEC"? I'm a Yank with questions..
I don't know what prices the TS3 sells for sorry. The NEC is an exhibition centre near Birmingham that holds, amongst other things, large classic car shows. HTH
More on the Ecurie Ecosse 6:17 here.
th-cam.com/video/gqysOBJgnBA/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=GoodwoodRoad%26Racing
They are all spectacular but I favour anything with left- hand drive as I for one thing have a lazy left eye and for another I live in Canada where we are supposed to drive on the right! CHEERS
flat bed everytime or recovery truck
A great profile of many of the Commer and Karrier models, some photos I have not seen before even though many had been featured on a Commer website I ran a good few years back after owners had sent me them for inclusion on the website. But there is one thing I can never understand and would like to comment on - and it is in no way meant as a criticism for the great job you have done! Why are the small cabbed models of Commer incorrectly labelled QXs in England, no matter what model using the small cab, while they are always called by their correct model name in New Zealand and Australia? In amongst my vast collection of manuals, driverʻs handbooks, official Rootes identification booklets (both NZ and English publication) there is never a QX identified or listed...But the small cabbed Commers are always called QX in advertising, on the web, or by writers in English Classic Truck magazines who should do a little more research and know better. There are five distinct Commer models that use the small British Light Steel Pressings cab - from the original petrol cabbed R7 Mk I of 1948 to the 1962 C7 Mk IV. They should always be identified by their correct model name, not QX so that if I said I had a 1954 QX Commer, am I talking about the last of the R7 Mk II petrol or the C7 Mk III first of the TS3 powered Commers. I would suggest the QX is an internal factory name for the cab design, remembering that the bonneted Q series was the current model at the time the QX came into existence in 1948 (with design work beginning in 1946) and maybe X stood for forward control? Elsewhere in the video, you have done a great job of correctly identifying some of the larger Sankey cabs as CA (UEN548) or CC models, the smaller forward control models as BFs and the later years of forward control vans as PBs (Iʻve owned both a PA and PB model). So why are the small cab models not identified by their correct model names??? MVJ814 is a C7 Mk III, probably a CD 741 model to give it its full model name (C range, Diesel (TS3) motor, 7 ton, 141” 11ʻ 7” standard wheelbase).
KFK 8850 is a CB model (the second series of large Sankey cabbed Commers, LRE 471 is a Superpoise Q Model from the heavy range (using the 6 cylinder sv model similar to the Humber Super Snipe car), DEY467C is also a CB model, CSV268 is Bernie Baileyʻs C7 MkIII - the first of the TS3 powered models, CRF343K is a CE model Maxiload, the brown bonneted Commer with a luton body is a Superpoise Q15 (15cwt = 3/4 cwt) of the Superpoise light range using a similar 4 cyl sv motor to the Humber Hawk (I have 3 of these), EVE 247D is a CC model, PBR806, HSU159A, 321 JTV , NTL574 are all C7 Mk IVs. EDD 451C should be a VB model, not a VA as the headlights are lower in the grille area, not in the centre vertically as VAs are. (There is a very interesting reason to do with assembly problems as to why all the C and V models after the very first series have the lower mounted lights :-) 8123VT is one of the early CA model larger Sankey cabs. I hope this is a help. Again, the intention is not to criticise or cause offence or be a smarty pants, just to help try and encourage the correct model identification of these remarkable trucks - having spent my very early years as a little ʻdriverʻs mateʻ alongside my father driving the first C7 MkIII TS3 powered Commer in our province in New Zealand in very hilly country. Hence the very strong interest in Commer trucks.
Interesting, I wasn't aware that any of my photos are on a Commer website. It's like the Ford E83W van, it was never referred to that in any brochure or handbook, it was the internal model name for it yet that is what they're called nowadays.
@@oldclassiccarUK Apologies for not explaining what I meant clearly through incorrect language. I didnʻt mean to imply that your specific photos were on the website, I meant that photos of most of these Commers were on the website and I knew their history (excluding the rusty wrecks in bushes) but there were a few like the lovely PN3 coach I have never seen before - and the Q25 FC FUO731nwhich is extremely rare. There is one not far from me here in NZ but the car modifier intends to make it into a hot rod, which is a shame if it happens. Interesting that the headlights appear to have been taken off the mudguards and mounted in the centre, unless these are additional lights? Certainly looks like the little headlights these have.
@@oldclassiccarUK I know I am wasting my time here as nothing I will ever say will change the opinion of anyone in England, and I wish I could have this discussion in a less public place and share documents with you but here goes... There are two problems with the comparison with the Fordson E83W...The first generation of forward control BLSP cabbed Commers were never know internally as a QX. I repeat what I saidb efore, that there is NO documentation internally that identifies a QX model. Second point is that as far as I am aware, there was never four different versions of the E83W with significant differences in the cab and powerplants / drivelines, which is why we need to identify the model correctly... When I ran my Commer website, a number of people contacted me, particularly Australians who had purchased or inherited farms etc with an old truck with Commer on the front. They wanted to know more about the truck. If I had said it was a QX, how does this help them find parts and manuals for their specific model??? Can I ask why you have spent so much time producing your wonderful slide show videos (and believe me I know how much these take to put together as a fellow photographer - you can see some of my efforts here - ccmv.aecsouthall.co.uk/p984473774 and here ccmv.aecsouthall.co.uk/p7625064. One reason is obviously to showcase your great photos... but is not the other reason to educate and inform? Otherwise why have you gone to so much trouble to tell us the specific model name of the other models in your photos? So why not get this range of trucks we are talking about correct? I donʻt know any other model of any truck brand and its power plants were there is so much disinformation about them. And having spent hours on the phone with one of the small original team (Don Kitchen) that bought the TS3 to life and who had a major hand in the TS4, enjoying wonderful stories from the inside of their manufacture as well as sharing some interesting letters and correspondence, I believe we have a duty to get it right for future generations - in their honour - as I my case, as one that does know the real background to this model and its powerplants, I am not going to be around for that much longer. These hard working people deserve to be honored correctly for what they achieved...
I drove a two stroke six legged for art transport of St Albans Herts the worst truck I ever had uncomfortable and noisy
Well at least you didn't fall asleep driving them.