anyone seen old car carriers the 70's / 80's?

Gidday Onetrack,

There is a couple of ramps you man handle into place to get one up on the goose neck. Same ramps are used for all the loading at the back.
Deck lift was hydraulic with a hand pump setup.

Basil

Gday Onetrack,
Thats a top story!! Betcha he had clay everywhere, undies and all.. Wonder what he thought next time he went past that way and saw the slope in daylight...
yeah I remember trailers like that, you'd have to reverse the car in on top of the drive, as the boot is always the longest part, so it could hang over behind the cab. made it very interesting if you were trying to drag up a non-goer or a damaged car, trying to tow it up there with a forklift etc. Occasionally you'd get a car with a towbar tongue you hadn't noticed, and of course the rotten thing would spear the back of the cab on the truck... One speared a hole in the back of my Atkinson cab, and as the air intake was up over the windscreen and down through the back of the cab, (made the bloody cabin freezing in winter) we reckoned the truck would "lose power" (!!!) like that so we got it fixed instead of leaving it there..
Basil thats a good bit of gear, looks great behind the 90! Well the 90 looks great regardless...

I subcontracted to Arnolds Car Carrying for eleven months during 1989. I owned the 1418 and they supplied the trailer for free. I only had to maintain the tyres. I carried six new Nissan cars from the factory in Clayton, Melbourne to Arnolds depot in Brisbane. I could do as many trips as I wished. One a week was enough in the old 1418.

They could not supply car loading for the trip back to Melbourne so if I could find a load whatever I earned was mine and there was no charge for use of the trailer. The trailer came with gates and tarps as well as the car carrying frames. The pipe frames and runners could be pulled down in a few minutes.

Geoff.

Gday Geoff,
Good to hear from you! yes we (my father and I) worked for Arnolds too, we used to take the Bluebirds and Pulsars to Ira berks in Brisbane, from Arnolds in Clayton. (Now Linfox and the HSV Holden factory I think) There used to be quite a few guys like us / you subbying for Arnolds. I must say, they were pretty good to work for, we never had any pressure on us at all re delivery time, it was quite common for us to lead then leave the truck in the yard for a week or so. Sometimes if we were building a new trailer or something, we would need to unload at home. We had an old Blitz crane, so we would open the doors of the Nissans, stick a 5x5 timber pole under the roof, and lift them off with the crane! Sometimes we'd need to kindof panel beat the edges of the doors a bit to make them straight again..... Nissan never said anything to us regarding funny dents in cars though! When we got organised, we'd then slowly make our way to Brisbane.
It was pretty much a four day trip each way for us too, then the same back, as we would stop in warwick, goondi, moree, narrabri, dubbo, etc etc and load wrecks or whatever else we could get. or maybe we'd go down to Sydney to pick up cars from the actions there. Sounds pretty cruisy now when I look back, but gee we used to work hard. I remember leaving home 6am on mornng from Geelong, I got to West Wyalong just on dark, and I was in Coonabarabran at Midnight, absolutely buggered... Still took me two more days to get to Brisbane from there! And if I didn't get to Warwick, I wouldn't be able to make it to Brisbane on the same day in time to unload by when they knocked off.... And I remember geelong to Sydney was about 18hours non stop. Hard yards. well, for me anyway, i was only 18 /19. Not hard when you read about what some of these other fellas did back then!
Tell us some stories guys!!!and got any more photos Geoff? cheers, Richard

This is a 1924 Benz the old man had, we loved it because it was actually a pretty good looking truck, compared to the rough looking old bombs he normally had... Nothing shiny about dads trucks..
He wasn't very impressed with the 1924, his mate who had a 1418 overtook him one day, so that was enough to make him go back to a 1418.. That and the funny backwards ZF 12 speed gearbox!!! This must have been about 1979, loaded with new datsun Stanzas..

I had one of those, a 1923 I thought it was, 12 speed ZF,it had trilex rims on it. I sold my Kenworth to a bloke in Gladstone who didn't have enough money, so he gave me the 1923, a 40' McGrath and a 34' Frieghter trailer, and a single axle road train dolly,all top quality gear. The gearbox was knackered in the Benz, it used to jump out of top gear. I drove it back to Bundy and left it in my mates yard. Because of the gearbox playing up it wasn't that quick, what a sweet feeling to see a couple of caravans stuck behind instead of the other way round for a change. A cocky in Munduberra bought it.

Richard,

Arnolds were good to work for. I bought the truck from someone at Dubbo early in January 1989 who had been a subbie with Arnolds. I took the unit home and wanted to paint the trailer and tidy few things up on the truck before I started working it. I rang Arnolds to tell them who I was and that I had their trailer and wouldn't be starting for a couple of weeks. No problem, just give us a ring when you are ready.

I used to ring them the afternoon before and say I'll be there in the morning for a load. I would mostly leave to go down to Melbourne from Dubbo on Monday afternoon and load on Tuesday morning because everyone else wanted to load on Monday. Have Wednesday night at home in Dubbo. Leave Thursday and go as far as Boggabilla. Go into Brisbane Friday, unload, back to Boggabilla for the night and home Saturday.

Most other subbies did one and a half round trips a week.

I too used to take a week off now and again. It did not worry them, there was no pressure on delivery times or minimum trip requirement. The pay was regular and always correct money.

Geoff.