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Welcome to our Blog...
...where you will find bits & pieces of news, ramblings and links - mostly relating to things with wheels on (or not, as in the example shown) - which we hope you might find of interest. In the same vein, if there’s a link or something you think might tickle one’s fancy send it to us at blog@fastforward.uk.com and we’ll consider pasting it up on the site, so long as it’s “legal, decent, honest and truthful”. Oh, and please bear copyright rules in mind when submitting pics.
Here’s a good place to start the ball rolling:
1980, when the rather long-winded McKay Freight Transport Services (Fast Forward International’s granddaddy) came into being with the purchase of this 1976 Mack F type tractor unit. Prior to our ownership it was used on UK- Middle East haulage which was brought to an abrupt conclusion when it collided with a sleeping camel.
Impounded for a year, until the camel owner was compensated, it was ultimately repatriated although the flora and fauna which moved in was still in evidence some years later – half way up the M6 one night, something the size of a golf ball flew out of the heating vent and ricochet’d around the cab before escaping into the Cheshire countryside through an open window. American trucks were much more common on European roads way back then, with reliability and levels of horsepower unheard of in home-brewed kit. White, Kenworth, Peterbilt and Mack all had UK sales outlets, and the hurdles to importation were set lower with EU type approval still a twinkle in the eurocrat’s eye.
Was this the first ever UK truck race?
Perhaps you know of another! With the Supertruck Grands Prix attracting big money at top venues like Brands Hatch these days, the sport’s humble beginnings seem a long way off and were more like a banger race than F1.
This particular event was run on a short oval circuit in Northamptonshire in July 1982, barely wide enough for 2 trucks to pass never mind powerslide round the corners (actually, the term ‘powerslide’ is probably a bit of an exaggeration and probably resulted more from rock-hard steel suspension and a centre of gravity somewhere near the roof). Not a single Winnebago in the paddock, and looking at the poleaxe safety barrier I wonder exactly where the ‘safe’ bit applies.
More freight on the railways?
Turning the clock even further back than Colin can remember, this pic comes from a collection of glass slides (part of the Fast Forward Heritage Collection of Things That Might Come In Useful One Day) taken in the north-east of Scotland in the early 1900’s. No, it’s not an early attempt by the multi-modal brigade to put more freight on the rails, it actually shows one of the first skirmishes in the road vs rail Hundred Years War.
Whilst it’s obvious to any unbiased transport historian that the railway company has deliberately designed the bridge to be too weak, thus preventing the honest haulier from going about his lawful business, no doubt the Old Meldrum Gazette headline of the day read something like ‘Overloaded Juggernaut Causes Rail Chaos’, such was (and is) the level of propaganda circulated by the vested interests of the railway companies.
Flying Teapot
Regular bloggers will have gathered that whilst our Fast Forward heads are firmly focussed on the future, our hearts look back on the past through solidly rose-tinted spectacles, if you’ll pardon the biological mix-up.
We love anything with wheels on, and if it’s ancient so much the better, which is why at weekends you’ll find us pretending to race old cars at circuits all over the country, and a few in Europe too. In any Men & Motors budget production of the world’s top 100 British motoring greats, the Jaguar Mk2 must surely come somewhere in the top five. Our car, known fondly as the ‘Teapot’ for reasons related to our MD’s mum’s collection of chinaware, is just such an icon.
Exported new to New York in 1961 as the final payment on a Liberty ship which is probably lying on it’s side in the Irish Sea, TSK330 was brought back home around 1990 and spent 10 years competing in historic rallies all over Europe, including the Monte Carlo, the Alpine and the Rome-Liege. After a decade of abuse, thoroughly knackered and with it’s suspension mounts above it’s ears, it was beaten more or less back into shape, given an engine and gearbox out of an E-type, and thrashed around Silverstone and the like by old men who ought to know better.
Historic racing is big business these days – if you’ve ever seen the annual Goodwood Revival you’ll understand – but at club level it’s still possible to have a lot of fun for (relatively) little cost. If you want to know more send a mail to blog@fastforward.uk.com and we’ll send you regular updates, or have a look at www.jec-racing.org.uk ,which is where we do most of our losing.
Ten-four to that
From walkie-talkies evolved car-phones and car-phones begat mobile phones (some the size and weight of four housebricks). In no time at all we had SMS, satellite tracking, all manner of telematics and soon, so we’re told, surgical implants with silicon chips rather than the old sort of implants with just the silicon.
But in a world time forgot (and most folk nowadays can’t even imagine) we had CB, or at least the Americans did, and a fair few found their way across the pond despite their illegality in Britain. In the early 80’s there existed a subversive underground movement which the government of the day viewed much the way they look on Al Quaeda today, and they were determined to put a stop to it. After all, every time someone called ‘Breaker, Breaker One Nine’, entire intensive care units would switch off, 747’s would rain down from the skies and Billy’s remote control Metal Mickey would waddle off over the horizon, never to be seen again. Little wonder that the General Post Office Radio Regulatory Department (acronyms hadn’t been invented back then) brought out the big guns.
To put it in perspective, when the Mid-Kent Citizen’s Band Radio Club formed in Maidstone, Kent in 1980, it drew over 300 paid-up members within a month, confounding the establishment who believed they were dealing with just a few cranks - multiply that nationwide and you could count the following in hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. In this wonderfully pre-pc era the borough council even allowed the pictured float to take part in their summer carnival, supporting the cause.
Those with exceptional powers of observation will have spotted Busby (remember him? No? Well, get back to your homework then) hanging from a gallows on the side, a grim joke which had parents smiling and kiddywinks crying. Ultimately the government gave in, possibly encouraged by the realisation that there was money to be made here, and CB radio was legalised, taking all the fun out of it at a single stroke.
MAN in drag
In the world of logistics (a term that probably didn’t exist when this photo was taken) PoD’s are more commonly associated with the need to provide Proof of Delivery, but here’s a different sort – Santa Pod, the Bedfordshire capital of drag racing in the UK.
Back in 1980 they tried all sorts of odd events to draw the punters including this Run-What-Ya-Brung weekend, a mixture of dubious terminology and even more dubious trucks. The two contenders pictured here were the only ‘outside’ entries, the other two trucks competing were both ancient petrol-engined International Harvesters, blagged off the local US Air Force base.
These had been breathed on by the racetrack’s own spannermen, converted to run on alcohol (like most of the audience) and fired down the quarter mile before a wholly underwhelmed public. In the road legal diesel class the MAN pictured squaring up to our long-suffering Mack probably still holds the record for the standing quarter mile, at around a day and a half.