Thornycroft vs Ford 1931

Here is a comparison between British and American military truck development around 1930. Pretty hard to believe the Poms accepted a truck for European weather with no body work. The supplied tarp arrangement is just rough sheets of canvas with no attempt to fit them to any sort of tight framework. It must have taken 10 minutes to get in and out of the cab trying to lean out to tie or strap the canvas in place still leaving just a tarp over your lap with the windowless buggy top scooping the rain in all over your upper body.. How miserable would they have been?

 

 

One of these 6x4 THORNYCROFT with workshop body ended up in TASMANIA. I had a look over it when it was at a kidstheme park near Launceston. Later on , it was sold and I again saw it near Deloraine. The truck was restored to miltary configuration by Chris Clemons, I spoke to him when I visited the kids them park,  the Tassie Thorny was featured in Wheels and Tracks magazine years ago. Don't know where it is now ?  Apparently another one , {or could be the same one  ? } was used in Tasmania by a UK engineering firm . 

 

 

Lunnicks were a UK company who came out in 1952 to work at the new HEC Tailrace at Trevallyn. This is their "state of the art mobile workshop". An old 1940's Thornycroft converted to house workshop equipment such as lathe, etc. AV Jennings, the builders, bought it from Lunnicks and used it for a few years. I used to walk past it on the way home from Cosgrove High school in the middle 1960's as AVJ were based in Lampton Ave, Glenorchy. Some years ago it had been restored and I saw it at Rutherglen. I wonder if it is still around?

Any survivors are a pretty rare thing as most lost at Dunkirk.

The Thornycroft register has a Web site  with many pics

www.thornycroft.org.uk/New%20Gallery.htm

   

www.thornycroft.org.uk/Thornycroft%20Group%20E.htm

The canvas "lap-blanket" looks so badly designed that the driver would need somebody outside the vehicle to fasten it. Maybe they issued a pocket knife for them to get out in an emergency?

I wonder if they gave the 60 year old factory tea-lady a prize when she said "Why don't you just put a windscreen on it?"

 

A small number of British army Thornycrofts arrived in Australia as ' refugee cargo ' in 1942. 

Around fifty Ships loaded with all types of cargo were headed for Hong Kong, Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies and Singapore.  As the Japanese overan these ports, the ships were diverted to Australian ports. 

I have a book on the history of Thornycroft,  the trucks hardly get a mention, 99% of the book is on ships and naval technology. 

The AWM army registration books, list a number of British army 'refugee' vehicles that were  transferred to the Australian Army. 

It's always amazed me that a Country that has a dozen or so dry days a year could persevere with such a stupid design.

Probably tying to save the cost of glass and a roof.

They persisted with rag top Military Vehicles right up the late Land Rovers.

Funny mob, lucky to win the War.

After making their name in sculptures the well to do Thornycroft family went in different directions with one branch sticking with the original endeavour of marine (ending up as Vosper Thornycroft) and John I Thornycroft setting up steam and truck manufacture. There are several books on the latter, including one celebrating their golden Jubilee in 1946 and what a good job they did for the war effort.
The 6x4 truck was a development of the 1920's A1, called A3. The War Office liked the rear suspension design so much other manufacturers had to copy it to comply with the subsidy vehicle scheme. The subject model of this thread was called 'Tartar' with mobile workshop and photographic bodies.

The rear suspension was designed by the British War Department in 1926. They patented it so that nobody else could patent it and then made it available for any manufacturer to use. The British Army accepted for their subvention (subsidy) scheme tandem drive trucks. in any one of three carrying capacities:- One and a half Ton with single tyres on the rear (Two tons on duals) Used by Morris Commercial and Guy, Three tons, used by Austin and Seven and a half tons, used by Thornycroft. A total of eight manufacturers used the War Department suspension.
There were other conditions the vehicles had to meet, including the ability to carry two thirds of it's rated capacity at two thirds of it's rated cruising speed over a freshly plowed field. (paddock to us colonials) 
The last application of the suspension was in the Thornycroft Mammoth Major, made in the 1960's, which is not bad for a suspension designed by the Military in 1926. It is said to be the second best load-sharing suspension ever designed.

Morris.

Morris

Don't keep us in suspension, what was the best system ever devised?