Seddon Atkinson
Encyclopedia
Large Goods Vehicle
A large goods vehicle , is the European Union term for any truck with a gross combination mass of over...
s based in Oldham
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
, Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, was formed in mid 1970 when Atkinson Vehicles Limited of Preston was acquired by Seddon Diesel Vehicles Limited of Oldham. In 1974 the firm was acquired by the American giant International Harvester
International Harvester
International Harvester Company was a United States agricultural machinery, construction equipment, vehicle, commercial truck, and household and commercial products manufacturer. In 1902, J.P...
, and in February 1983 it was purchased by the Spanish group ENASA which made it a subsidiary of Pegaso, a manufacturer of medium-sized commercial vehicles. In 1990 it became part of the international commercial vehicle concern IVECO
Iveco
Iveco, an acronym for Industrial Vehicle Corporation, originally an alliance of European commercial vehicle manufacturers such as Fiat , Unic and Magirus. Iveco is now an Italian truck, bus, and diesel engine manufacturer, based in Turin...
who used the brand for various types of specialised vehicles in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The range of models produced include EuroMover, Pacer and Strato, which are aimed at refuse collection, recycling and construction operators. The range is sold across the UK by a network of 13 distributors, comprising a mix of dedicated Seddon Atkinson dealers together with dealers who also sell IVECO models.
Recent Seddon Atkinson vehicles are readily identifiable from other IVECO
Iveco
Iveco, an acronym for Industrial Vehicle Corporation, originally an alliance of European commercial vehicle manufacturers such as Fiat , Unic and Magirus. Iveco is now an Italian truck, bus, and diesel engine manufacturer, based in Turin...
products because of the company's former Atkinson logo, a large letter 'A' within a circle, usually in chrome (or chrome-effect) on the radiator grille. The circular Atkinson logo dated from 1937, having largely replaced the 'Knight Of The Road' badge of earlier Atkinsons.
History - Atkinson
Originally a firm of steam-wagon repairers and manufacturers, founded in 1907 in Preston, Lancashire, EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Atkinson & Co. evolved into Seddon Atkinson Vehicles Ltd through a succession of mergers.
Early years
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, by two of five brothers, Sir Edward Atkinson (1880–1932) and Sir Henry Birch Atkinson (1882–1921) with assistance from their brother-in-law George Hunt (1870–1950). The real and effective beginning of the company was in 1907, when the partners decided to capitalise on the need for local engineers to make temporary or permanent repairs to the increasing number of ‘pullcars’ and private motor vehicles on the road. By 1912, the organisation had moved to premises in Kendal Street and the number of employees had grown to twenty. In the same year a second, smaller repair centre was opened in Freemason’s Row, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, to cater for the enormous volume of steam traffic using the docks. Very soon the company made something of a name for itself in the north of England as quality repairers, and the growing number of operators brought new business from far and wide.
Progress
With the outbreak of war in 1914, demand for internal road transport grew considerably, the nation finding itself desperately throttled by the inadequacy of the railways to offer a complete transport network. Some method of local delivery and collection was needed to supplement the services of the railway companies, and with most of the existing steam wagon manufacturers turning their resources over to munitions production, demand increased further. The Atkinsons, shrewd observers at any time, decided to experiment by making a wagon of their own design, and in 1916, the first Atkinson six-tonne four-wheel steam wagon was produced in Kendal Street and became an instant success. The market enjoyed a short boom period following the Armistice and the Atkinsons, realising the potential, purchased a five-acre site of land near their homes in Frenchwood, on which they intended to erect a new and enlarged factory, solely designed for the production of steam wagons. Together with the field they also bought the 17th century Frenchwood House, with the intention of using it partly as their offices and partly as their personal quarters. By 1918 the Atkinsons had built up a competent team of engineers and salesmen as well as an enthusiastic and loyal labour force, and were producing wagons competitive in both price and performance. Henry Atkinson died suddenly in 1921 and consequently the company fell into the hands of his brother Edward. At this time, new ideas and designs were constantly being tried out while production rose to a peak of some three wagons per week, and the total labour force rose to well over a hundred and fifty.Decline of steam
Edward Atkinson had a glorified view of steam and did not acknowledge the warnings when sales began to slow down in the mid-1920s. Leyland Motors LtdLeyland Motors Ltd
Leyland Motors Limited was a British vehicle manufacturer of lorries, buses and trolleybuses. It gave its name to the British Leyland Motor Corporation formed when it merged with British Motor Holdings, later to become British Leyland after being nationalised...
sold their steam remnants to Atkinson in 1926, followed by Mann in 1929. There seems to have been various family rivalries at the time and the firm was undoubtedly in difficulties when Edward Atkinson decided to seek help from mine engineers and Pagefield lorry makers, Walker Brothers of Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
. Under a new arrangement, Walkers manufactured Uniflow
Uniflow steam engine
The uniflow type of steam engine uses steam that flows in one direction only in each half of the cylinder. Thermal efficiency is increased in the compound and multiple expansion types of steam engine by separating expansion into steps in separate cylinders; in the uniflow design, thermal efficiency...
engines for Atkinsons, but by this time very few orders were forthcoming. Edward Atkinson had cancer and was unable to pay any dividends on the preference shares and finally abandoned wagon production in 1929 after a grand total of about 545 Atkinsons had been built. The final years were made possible by a cancellation fee from Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
Co-op Society, which had ordered a hundred wagons. The Frenchwood and Freemason’s Row factories closed with the end of the steamers, though the Kendal Street factory remained for repairing and servicing existing wagons. Edward Atkinson died in 1932 and a year later the firm he co-founded was acquired by London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
garage owner W. G. Allen, whose father had started Nightingale Garage. Allen was chairman of Atkinson Lorries (1933) Ltd and H. B. Fielding was managing director. Allen had effectively run the firm since 1931, and remained in charge until his death in 1949.
Atkinson lorries 1933–69
The formula established in the 1933 reorganisation served the company well and became the basis of most production at Walton-le-Dale thereafter. The production philosophy was similar to that of Seddon, ERFERF (lorry manufacturer)
ERF was a British truck manufacturer. Established in 1933 by Dennis Foden, its factory in Sandbach, Cheshire was closed in 2002, and finished as a marque by owner MAN AG in 2007.-History:...
, Rutland (Motor Traction) and other competitors aiming for value-for-money lorry sales, viz: the assembly of tried and tested proprietary components. A bought-in chassis frame to Atkinson design was generally powered by a Gardner engine, driving through a David Brown Ltd.
David Brown Ltd.
David Brown Engineering Limited is a British engineering company, principally engaged in the manufacture of gears and gearboxes. Their major gear manufacturing plant is in Swan Lane, Lockwood, Huddersfield, adjacent to Lockwood railway station...
gearbox to Kirkstall rear axles. During World War II Gardner engines were reserved for military applications, excepting the Guy
Guy Motors
Guy Motors was a British company based in Fallings Park, Wolverhampton that made cars, lorries, buses, and trolleybuses.-History:Guy Motors Ltd was founded in 1914 by Sydney Guy who had been the Works Manager of nearby Sunbeam. A factory was built on the site at Fallings Park, Wolverhampton...
Arab bus; Atkinson lorries sanctioned by the Ministry of Production for sale to civilian hauliers for the duration were fitted with the AEC '7.7 litre' unit (which actually displaced 7.58 litres). Nationalisation of Road Haulage in 1948 affected Atkinson as many of their customers were private sector general hauliers who were nationalised, but British Road Services
British Road Services
The National Freight Corporation was a major British transport business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and at one time, as NFC plc, it was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.-History:...
bought rigid-eight Atkinson Lorries alongside similar products made by state-owned Bristol Commercial Vehicles
Bristol Commercial Vehicles
Bristol Commercial Vehicles was a vehicle manufacturer of in Bristol, England. Most production was of buses but trucks and railbus chassis were also built....
.
During the 1950s hauliers began to ask for more powerful engines – at the time, Gardner only offered engines for road-vehicle applications with a maximum output of 120 bhp. In response, in the early 1950s Atkinson trial-fitted a Daimler
Daimler Motor Company
The Daimler Motor Company Limited was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H J Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The right to the use of the name Daimler had been purchased simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler Motoren...
650 cubic inch engine rated at 150 bhp in a rigid-eight (8-wheel, non-articulated) chassis. Later, Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce Limited
Rolls-Royce Limited was a renowned British car and, from 1914 on, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904....
and Cummins
Cummins
Cummins Inc. is a Fortune 500 corporation that designs, manufactures, distributes and services engines and related technologies, including fuel systems, controls, air handling, filtration, emission control and electrical power generation systems...
engines were offered alongside Gardner units; Gardner responded with a 150 bhp unit in 1957, and 180 and 240 bhp units by 1968.
In 1959, following a change in Construction & Use Regulations, Atkinson offered a glass-reinforced plastic
Glass-reinforced plastic
Fiberglass , is a fiber reinforced polymer made of a plastic matrix reinforced by fine fibers of glass. It is also known as GFK ....
(GRP) cab as a replacement for the previous coachbuilt hardwood and metal cab on standard production models; it featured twin fixed wrap-around windscreens rather than the traditional flat opening glasses but retained the traditional exposed radiator. From the 1950s many Atkinsons had carried the 'Knight of the Road' trademark device on the upper offside corner of the radiator grille, and in the 1960s models were sold under the trade names Black Knight, Silver Knight etc.
Some left-hand-drive Atkinsons exported to mainland Europe in the early 1960s had pressed-steel cabs which were bought from Krupp after the company had ceased commercial vehicle production. A different design of GRP cab, launched in the mid 1960s and marketed as Viewline, had a deep single-piece main windscreen with wrap-around quarter glasses. The Krupp Cabs and early Viewline cabs had concealed radiators, but the market preferred the time-served Atkinson radiator outline with the 'Big A' or 'Circle A' device centred upon it. The most notable Viewline Atkinsons were a fleet of 6x6 gritters built in 1966-7 on the orders of the United Kingdom Ministry of Transport for use on the motorway network. These had the same Cummins V6-200 engines as used in the Daimler Roadliner
Daimler Roadliner
The Daimler Roadliner was a single deck bus or coach chassis built by Daimler between 1962 and 1972. Notoriously unreliable, it topped the 1993 poll by readers of Classic Bus as the worst bus type ever, beating the Guy Wulfrunian into second place...
bus and early examples of the Guy
Guy Motors
Guy Motors was a British company based in Fallings Park, Wolverhampton that made cars, lorries, buses, and trolleybuses.-History:Guy Motors Ltd was founded in 1914 by Sydney Guy who had been the Works Manager of nearby Sunbeam. A factory was built on the site at Fallings Park, Wolverhampton...
Big J lorry. The application, involving long-distance non-stop running, suited the Cummins engine's idiosyncrasies more than did the stop-start work required of Roadliners. Later examples had the conventional Atkinson cab.
From 1968 the standard GRP cab was revised, with stronger steel framing, larger box dimensions and wider, deeper windscreens. This cab featured on the final Atkinson haulage models, the four axle Defender and the Borderer 4x2 haulage tractor.
Bus production 1954–64
In 1948 Bristol Commercial VehiclesBristol Commercial Vehicles
Bristol Commercial Vehicles was a vehicle manufacturer of in Bristol, England. Most production was of buses but trucks and railbus chassis were also built....
had been nationalised as part of the Tilling Group. Thanks to a Conservative-sponsored amendment to the Transport Act 1947
Transport Act 1947
The Transport Act 1947 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Under it the railways, long-distance road haulage and various other types of transport were acquired by the state and handed over to a new British Transport Commission for operation...
(designed to make sure British Railways’ locomotive and rolling stock works did not compete with the private-sector) Bristol found itself legally unable to accept orders for its bus chassis outside fleets wholly owned by the British Transport Commission, a situation which lasted until 1965.
One of the most loyal Bristol customers up to 1948 had been the North Western Road Car Company (NWRCC) of Stockport, who had until 1941 been jointly owned by Tilling and the British Electric Traction
British Electric Traction
British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rentokil Initial.- Early history :The company was founded as...
group. (After 1941 it was transferred to BET group control.) After the North Western's last Bristols were delivered in 1950, the company took Leyland Titans and Royal Tigers for a year or so, but the heavy weight, high fuel consumption, poor braking performance and high purchase cost of the Royal Tiger led North Western's management to seek an equivalent to the nationalised sector's Bristol LS bus, with lightweight construction and a Gardner engine horizontally oriented and mounted underfloor. Not impressed by the heavyweight Gardner-engined Guy Arab UF and Daimler Freeline
Daimler Freeline
The Daimler Freeline is an underfloor-engined bus chassis built by Daimler between 1951 and 1964. It was a very poor seller in the UK market for underfloor-engined bus and coach chassis but became a substantial export success....
they approached Atkinson asking for a bus to their specification. This was called the Atkinson Alpha and it made its debut at the 1952 Earls' Court Commercial Motor Show. The Alpha range featured a horizontal Gardner engine (four, five and six-cylinder versions were offered), a choice of constant mesh and synchromesh gearboxes from David Brown, and either a lightweight or medium-weight frame. As events turned out, after the initial two batches for North Western in 1953–4 – the first of which were rare rear-entrance underfloor-engined buses – the senior management of the BET group removed Atkinson, Guy and Daimler from their list of preferred suppliers. Around the same time, Leyland dropped the purchase price of the Tiger Cub
Leyland Tiger Cub
The Leyland Tiger Cub was a lightweight underfloor-engined chassis built by Leyland Motors between 1951 and 1970, most as 44-45 seat buses, with a smaller number as coaches...
. North Western then took Tiger Cubs and AEC Reliance
AEC Reliance
The AEC Reliance was a single-deck bus or coach chassis with a mid-underfloor-mounted engine, built by AEC in Southall, west London, England between 1953 and 1979. The name had previously been used between 1928 and 1931 for another single-deck bus chassis....
s for their single-deck needs for the rest of the 1950s.
Atkinson's management then decided that although Daimler and Guy were publicly offering Gardner-engined double-deckers, and some influential (mainly Scottish) customers could purchase AEC Regents with that make of engine, they would also enter this market. Thus at the 1954 Earls' Court Commercial Motor Show two Atkinson double-deck buses were exhibited: one was a chassis, the other carried a 60-seat centre-entrance double-deck body by Northern Counties Motor and Engineering Company to the order of The Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport (and Electricity) Board. This bus (UMA450) is preserved by the Greater Manchester Transport Museum and is also of interest as the first double-deck bus with an electrically controlled direct-acting epicyclic gearbox, this Self-Changing Gears
Self-Changing Gears
Self-Changing Gears was a British company, set up and owned equally by Walter Gordon Wilson and John Davenport Siddeley to develop and exploit the Wilson or pre-selector gearbox...
(SCG) unit was fitted by Atkinson after delivery but before entry into service as the SHMD board's drivers (who were used to pre-selective transmissions on the fleets' standard Daimlers) did not want to use the originally installed David Brown constant-mesh unit. The un-bodied exhibition chassis, which featured semi-automatic transmission, was dismantled around the same time. No further Atkinson double-deck bus chassis were built.
It is unclear whether Atkinson's early lead in two-pedal bus transmissions has anything to do with the minority shareholding (around 15%) that Leyland Motors held in Atkinson Lorries (1933) Ltd until the firm was taken over by Seddon. Leyland were, by 1954, part owners of SCG but the 1954 PDR1 prototype had the direct air-operated Pneumocyclic transmission at the time. Neither Guy nor Daimler had a two-pedal transmission and AEC had only just exhibited theirs on the prototype Routemaster
Routemaster
The AEC Routemaster is a model of double-decker bus that was built by Associated Equipment Company in 1954 and produced until 1968. Primarily front-engined, rear open-platform buses, a small number of variants were produced with doors and/or front entrances...
.
As well as an underfloor engined single-deck and a front-engined double-deck, Atkinson also produced a front-engined single-deck bus chassis, this being to a similar layout to the Bedford SB
Bedford SB
The Bedford SB was a front-engined bus chassis built by Bedford Vehicles in the United Kingdom. It was launched at the 1950 Commercial Motor Show as the replacement for the Bedford OB....
but of more durable construction. It sold well to Atkinson export markets, mainly in the Sterling zone, an example survives as a mobile home in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom sales of this Atkinson bus amounted to three: one batch of two for a municipal operator and a further frustrated export chassis.
Norman Morton, the General Manager of Sunderland Corporation Transport from 1953–68, looked for efficiency-savings wherever they could be found. He had a route with a peak vehicle requirement of two, and a peak load of just over 40 which was being run by a pair of 32-seat 1950 Guy Arab III half-cab single deckers due for overhaul. Initially he approached Guy with the replacement specification, but they said they were not prepared to build a mere two buses to his detailed requirements, so he went to Atkinson. Sunderland 30-1 (GGR230-1) were the result, bodied in 1958 by Charles H. Roe
Charles H. Roe
Charles H. Roe Ltd. was a Yorkshire coachbuilding company. It was for most of its life based at Crossgates Carriage Works, in Leeds.In 1947 it was taken over by Park Royal Vehicles. Two years later, along with its parent, it became part of Associated Commercial Vehicles in 1949, which was merged...
to FB41F layout and 8 ft wide by 30 ft long box-dimensions; they had constant-mesh gearboxes and four-cylinder 80 bhp Gardner 4LW engines. The route was a 'limited-stop' taking workmen from their homes to the docks and back again. The route was not hilly and the stops were few. The bodywork was utilitarian and the livery was mainly drab mid-green with cream window surrounds. The 41 seats were well-shaped and well padded and the wide double-stream entrance-exit just aft of the front wheels was covered by four-leaf double jack-knife doors.
Shortly afterwards a frustrated export chassis, to a shorter wheelbase and 27 ft 6in overall length, was bodied by Plaxton
Plaxton
Plaxton is a builder of bus and coach vehicle bodies based in Scarborough, England.-History:The Plaxton of today is the successor to a business founded in Scarborough in 1907 by Frederick William Plaxton.-Beginnings:...
to its then-new Highway outline at the orders of a Wakefield operator and registered as NHL127.
After North Western were discouraged by the British Electric Traction
British Electric Traction
British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rentokil Initial.- Early history :The company was founded as...
group from purchasing Atkinson Alphas the company sought sales in the independent market, producing lightweight bus and coach demonstrators. A large independent which did buy some was Lancashire United Transport
Lancashire United Transport
Lancashire United Transport was a tram, bus and trolleybus operator based at Howe Bridge in Atherton, 10 miles north west of Manchester...
and SHMD bought some Alphas to go with their double-decker. The most successful fruit of Atkinson's bus-sales effort was with Venture Transport
Venture Transport
The Venture Transport Company was a major operator of bus services in the Derwent Valley between Consett and Newcastle upon Tyne. The company was absorbed by The Northern General Transport Company in 1970.-Resurrection of the Venture name:...
(Newcastle) Limited, of Consett, County Durham. Between 1946 and 1948 Venture had replaced the majority of its pre-war fleet with 35-seat Willowbrook-bodied Daimler CVD6's. No further buses were bought by Venture over the next half decade. In 1954 Atkinson lent Venture TTC882 a Burlingham-bodied 44-seat bus which met with the approval of Venture's management and orders ensued for twenty-four vehicles delivered in three batches from 1955-7 with differently styled B45F or DP41F Willowbrook bodies. Over the rest of the 1950s small numbers of Alphas were sold to other independent operators.
The Alpha continued to be listed without sales into the 1960s but a final home market order came from Sunderland Corporation in 1962 for 1963/4 delivery. The three buses concerned looked like buses from a different age to previous Atkinsons as they carried Marshall bodies of 33 ft length and 8 ft 2 ½ in width to the then-new BET-group outline, with double curvature front and rear screens and peaked roof-domes at either end. They were finished in a mainly cream version of the Sunderland livery and were to B45D layout. Like Doncaster Corporation's slightly later Leyland Royal Tiger Cubs they were purposely designed for the 'intermediate' length and had a wheelbase of 18 ft. They were numbered 46-48 and registered WBR246-8. The first initially was fitted with a constant mesh gearbox, but was swiftly refitted with a direct-air operated Self-Changing Gears unit, featuring a Leyland style 'pedestal' gear change with which the other two were built. Sunderland 48 was the last Atkinson PSV constructed and is preserved. Ironically, the last Seddon PSV design, the Pennine 7
Seddon Pennine 7
The Seddon Pennine 7 was a mid-underfloor-engined single-deck bus or coach chassis built by Seddon Atkinson between 1974 and 1982.-Historical overview:...
, had much more in common with the Alpha than with most previous Seddon bus chassis.
Atkinson nomenclature
This was very simple in style, and a system that in its basics, lasted from 1933-75 consisting of a number for weight (initially estimated payload, but after 1968 maximum gross vehicle or gross-train weight) then a second number for wheels and then the number of cylinders, assuming initially vertically mounted Gardner LW series engines.Thus an Atkinson 646 would have been a 6-ton payload 4x2 wagon with four wheels and a Gardner 6LW engine.
A 1066A would have had a ten-ton payload, to 6x4 layout and an AEC (seven-seven) powerplant.
During the 1950s as well as the already-existing suffix for engine-type, prefixes H, M and L (for heavy, medium and light duty frames) were adopted, the Alpha had a second prefix P (for passenger) Thus an early Alpha could carry the code:
PL545H (H used for horizontal Gardner engines)
By the mid-1950s Alphas had pre-prefixes depending on whether they had overdrive constant-mesh (C, for coach) or direct-drive synchromesh gearboxes (B, for bus) hence BPL745H for the first 18 Venture examples, the last six being CPL745H.
The double-decker had the unique frame-code D. Whether that stood for double-deck or dropped frame is not clear, but the PD746 designation given to the two built showed a seven-ton payload, four wheels and a Gardner 6LW. Assuming somebody would have wanted a pantechnicon with a dropped-frame at that time from Walton-le-Dale, it may have been a D746.
Relaxation of legally allowed length and widths resulted in further suffix letters: The first two Sunderland buses were L644LWs (lightweight frame, six tons, four wheels, 4LW engines, long wheelbases, wide-track). The New Zealand survivor is given as an L644XLW (extra-long, around 33 ft long).
The final three Alphas were coded PM646HL, viz: passenger, medium-weight frame, six-tonne payload, four wheels, Gardner 6HLW engine, long wheelbase.
Later Atkinson codes included (at a guess) M3246R for a 32-ton GTW Borderer with a Rolls-Royce Eagle engine.
The work with the Alpha was also taken into Atki’s mainstream wagon business, there were Atkinson customers, particularly breweries, who ordered underfloor engined Atki wagons, enabling a three-seat cab. The flat-bed body had a trap in it so the (Gardner 4HLW) engine could be seen-to. Sentinel, Albion, Guy and Dennis had also done the same but not as reliably because they did not use a Gardner.
Successors
Atkinson merged with Seddons of OldhamOldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
in 1970. The last "true" Atkinson, a Defender 8-wheel rigid bearing chassis number FC29941, was built at Atkinson's Walton-le-Dale works in 1975. It went to G & B McCready of Newcastle-under-Lyme and carried the registration KVT 604 P. Today it rots in their yard.
Alongside Seddon's facility at Oldham, the Atkinson works assembled the Seddon Atkinson 400 Series and also the first batch of the new 401 model, before closing at the end of 1981.
Iveco
Iveco
Iveco, an acronym for Industrial Vehicle Corporation, originally an alliance of European commercial vehicle manufacturers such as Fiat , Unic and Magirus. Iveco is now an Italian truck, bus, and diesel engine manufacturer, based in Turin...
announced its decision to manufacture Seddon Atkinsons in Spain in 2005, and shortly afterwards the brand name was incorporated into the mainstream Iveco catalogue. The Oldham manufacturing facilities were shut-down in 2004, and the offices were closed at the end of 2006.
Sources and Bibliography
Ref. ALH (AtkinsonLorries Holdings) Collection, The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick- Halton, Maurice J., The Impact of Conflict and Political Change on Northern Industrial Towns, 1890 to 1990, MA Dissertation, Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, Manchester Metropolitan University September 2001 MA Dissertation