Rolls Royce Diesels in Trucks

Cedric Abood's creation was a Foden chassis with Kenworth cab and Rolls engine.

Prodrive - what happened bribabree truck wreckers in the end?

The old Mack is a real gem but the trailer behind it is a big surprise, all timber at the turntable

The first 4 Pacific trucks in Tasmania (in Aus actually) were RR powered ...C6NFL ...non turbo of about 210hp ... On logging work here ...the very first one still has its original RR engine ... But now sports a KW cab and bonnet :dry: :huh:

The other 3 were later converted to 8V71 GMs ... But I believe those trucks had a lot harder life that the first one hence they wore out quicker.

I am not aware of any others here to n Tassie though

Pacific being Canadian maybe had some tax exemption from England where possibly any of the mainland states would have been paying full import duties??
I may have that wrong, because I would imagine that almost all other components would probably have been scourced in the US ???
I may have this wrong also, but didnt a lot of Mainland states start up subsidary companies in Canada to get around these tax laws??
Maybe Brocky45 could explain it better than I.
Dave_45

Pacific built everything themselves .. except for engine,trans and diffs

As the RR Merlin engines were also manufactured in Canada during the war could there be a hangover factorwith these being Canadian built or assembled?

Makes sense.

Dave 64 is on the right track!! Ford, Chevy, Mack and Chrysler built assembly plants in Canada to avoid tariffs. Ford badged trucks as Mercury's, Dodge as Fargo, Chevy as Mapleleaf, a Canadian Chevy car looked like an American Pontiac, Your 58 Ford car used an earlier Canadian car grille. Ford had an engine plant in Windsor Ont which shipped engines to the States. Exactly how many of parts were shipped in from the States and how the accounting worked, I do NOT know???? But all of it was to avoid import / export tariffs!!

Steve

Canada did not build Merlins during WW2. The Canadian Lancasters were almost American in their componentry including props, wiring, bearings, bolts etc and particularly the Packard Merlins. Even the threads on many major parts were changed to American specifications.

I don't know but time and again I have seen written that the Packard Merlins were better built and more reliable than the Rolls Royce built ones due to closer tolerances and better quality control. The Canadian built Lancaster was prized by aircrew as the "safer" model not least because it had a .50 calibre turret compared to the fairly ineffective .303 turrets on all other models.

We had an ex Wing Commander which he kept quiet about, farming here, he told me they tried to avoid Lancasters from the Austin factory as the rivets tended to pop on landing. When offered a flight in a light aircraft he turned it down, said he never wanted to fly again.
David.