What truck is this.

That looks suspiciously like the lineup in front of Old Tailem Town. Lots of people (including me) have the full set. Perhaps all are listed in a museum catalog (but not necessarily correctly)?

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Rod,

About 1,500km from Tailem Town as far as I know.

Lang

Here you go:

1937 Matador which is truck in question from the wire grille badge.

Our truck looks like it has the all steel export cab, slightly different around windows etc to the English wood cab.

The 0346 type was introduced in 1936 which at that stage used the 7.7 indirect diesel notor, but changed to a direct injection of the same size a few years later (as well as having option of the then traditional petrol or even possibly the earlier 8.. The Matador was a heavier type designed for trailer work and would have been king of the road in it's day. Due to confusion with the name being used on the WW11 4WD the model name was later changed to Mandator.
The quarter lights of the cab certainly look like Hastings Deering but I don't know if he was in business then.
As a cautionary tale I always assumed that the cab of my MM was H-D but I have since been told by the truck's lifetime mechanic that it was it's 2nd cab built by the firm across the road in Newcastle. So it is possible that this is not the original cab.

The cab is early Hastings-Deering.The Mandator is also H-D but post about 1960.

A bit slow on my behalf but Neil Fraser sent me this link to his AEC model range page. A good resource for identifying those pesky AECs:

www.aecsouthall.co.uk/aecmodels/00_aec.htm