As some of you will by now be conscious I started working at Orwell Trucks Mercedes Benz at the beginning of July. Obtaining always worked in transport and l haulage a move into trucks sales appears to have been a excellent move. When you commence at any new workplace it appears there is always a “Martyn Beverly” character some where in the business. Mr Beverly is a quiet man who has learnt his trade from the ground up, he nevertheless earns his maintain by supplying all the massive fleets of East Anglian and beyond with the Mercedes Benz industrial automobiles. The wealth of expertise Martyn has for MB trucks and vans getting worked for Orwell Trucks for over 30 years is remarkable. A couple of days sat with Martyn can teach you more than reading any brochure or book or even going on an MB instruction course. As we clearly have a shared interest in trucks I was keen to let Martyn see some of David Scarff’s MB truck photos, specially ones of neighborhood trucks. The above photo was taken by David Scarff outdoors Fred Archers yard one Saturday morning in the Mid 1980’s. As quickly as Martyn saw this photo he stated he sold the truck to Archers. Cue the flood gates for plenty far more info and all I could want to know about the story of this distinct truck. I asked Martyn to create down what he could remember so beneath is just that…….
With the impending introduction of 38 tonne GCW artics on 5 axles in 1983, operators with fleets of tandem axle trailers and 2 axle units, require a 3 axle tractor unit to comply with the new legislation. Some truck producers had a difficulty as they absolutely nothing created to meet this requirement. Luckily Mercedes-Benz already made a suitable car in Europe which could effortlessly be modified to suit the UK marketplace – Enter the 2028LS.
In 1982 Mercedes Benz decided to bring a single automobile more than to the UK to assess its suitability. I saw a image of it in a Mercedes firm brochure below the heading “An intriguing development for the future”. During one of my several meetings with Fred Archer, I told him about this truck and he was very interested as he had noticed them while on his travels by means of Eastern Europe. I investigated and discovered out that this vehicle was at the Mercedes automobile preparation centre at New Millerdam near Wakefield. I asked asked if I could borrow it and a lot to my surprise they said yes. Our driver Brian Booth picked the vehicle up and purchased it back to Ipswich so we could have a look at the spec as there have been no Data Sheets available.
– Left hand drive (massive steering wheel!)
– L type sleeper cab with twin bunks
– Red orange cab
– Red oxide colour chassis
– Jost sliding 5th wheel
– MB 14.6 litre naturally aspirated V8 engine. 276hp.
– Fuller roadranger continuous mesh 13 speed gearbox. 4 speed + variety adjust + splitter on leading 4 gears and a crawler. Very uncommon as it would have usually been a ZF Ecosplit.
– 12R x 22.5 tyres
– Centre axle permanently steered with air suspension above a steel spring load transfer device.
– Rear axle. Hub reduction, complete 4 bag air suspension with in cab level handle
– GVW was 20,330kg
– 3,750mm outer axle spread – the prop shaft was as thick as a telegraph pole!
I took the automobile down to Fred (Archer) and hitched it onto one particular of his trailers and we went for an in depth road test around Ipswich, right after which Fred certainly wanted to purchase it – if the price tag was correct of course! I went away and got the numbers sorted and Fred ordered the vehicle. No records exist but I reckon it was about £30,000. This truck was very distinctive as it was the 1st of this model ever to be sold in England.
To prepare the automobile we fitted the snorkel front air intake, a radio, cab heater, rear wings, alloy cat walk / fuel tank (from GB Engineering in Wisbech), sun visor, full chassis and cab paint and ultimately it was sign written by Rod Chapple using a great old brush and paint. When finished and delivered to Fred we did a photo shoot with one of his trailers all about Martlesham Heath and images were taken off the bridge over the A12. The driver was a chap referred to as Mick Dade who had worked for Fred archer for some time (Mick Dade ultimately worked for IST in Harwich as Transport Manager.
You can’t ask for a much better write up than that all off the back of a single photo. The other photos here are all copyright of Martyn Beverly and as ever please respect the copyright. Fred archer need to have been impressed with the huge German as I identified another David Scarff photo of an A reg MB 2028, only visible variations getting it is correct hand drive and no snorkel!
There are a couple of much more old images in the archives so you by no means know we may be able to get a handful of far more snippets of the very good old days from Martyn and Orwell Trucks back catalogue. Off you go driver, content trucking……….
Martyn’s Maiden Mercedes-Benz 2028LS
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