Atkinson Vehicles
Atkinson Vehicles was a British commercial vehicle manufacturer from Preston , Lancashire . The company manufactured its first truck in 1916 . After the merger with Seddon Diesel Vehicles , the company merged with Seddon Atkinson in 1970 .
Company history
The company's founder, Edward Atkinson , started a steam car repair company in 1907 as an agent for Alley & McLean, which originally produced the Sentinel steam cars. In 1916 he developed his own steam engine. Designed for a payload of 6 tons , the vehicle had a steam engine and iron tires placed horizontally under the driver's cab . In the early 1920s, three vehicles were produced per week. The trucks were equipped with various bodies, including three-way tippers , and were also exported. During the Depression in the late 1920s, the company ran into financial difficulties and stopped producing vehicles, but the maintenance and repair of steam cars and trailers continued.
In 1933 took WG Allen , the management of the now as Atkinson Lorries Ltd operating under the name the company. Under his leadership, a conventional, two-axle truck with a payload of 6 tons was developed. The steam engine, what you went off, instead, one came Gardner - diesel engine used. Later a three-axle truck followed and in 1937 a four-axle truck with two steered front axles and a payload of 15 tons. Regardless of the fact that the rear axle had twin tires , such vehicles were referred to in the United Kingdom as six- or eight-wheelers . Atkinson introduced the modular design for its vehicles at an early stage and used, for example, a standardized driver's cab for all vehicle types. The trucks produced were characterized by high manufacturing quality and good performance characteristics and were positively assessed by the operators, but the number of vehicles produced remained low.
During the Second World War, Atkinson acquired several arms contracts. In 1940 they won an order for 60 three-axle vehicles equipped with the Gardner 6LW diesel engine. In the following year, another order was won for 100 more three-axle vehicles, but this time they were to receive an engine from AEC , and finally over 100 four-axle vehicles with the same engine. These government contracts stabilized the company's financial position.
After the end of the Second World War, the production of trucks for the civilian market quickly resumed. The revised two, three and four-axle vehicles were offered. The cab was initially taken over from the pre-war types, but underwent a facelift in 1953 .
With a view to the market for heavy construction vehicles and use in the oil industry, heavier types were developed from 1957 onwards. With the Omega , a heavy-duty tractor unit with the wheel formula 6 * 6 was produced for a trailer load of 100 tons, which was powered by a Rolls-Royce diesel engine.
In 1960 Atkinson introduced a new cab with the windshield wrapped around the sides. The driver's cab was made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic , making Atkinson a pioneer in the use of composite materials in truck construction. At the beginning of the 1960s, the production range was also restructured. The Black Knight series comprised two-, three- and four-axle vehicles that were offered as flatbed trucks. The Gold Knight series produced chassis with a shortened wheelbase for dump trucks and concrete mixers , while the Silver Knight series comprised tractors and semitrailer tractors . For export to continental Europe, some Silver Knight chassis were equipped with driver's cabs from Krupp in 1968 , but these were not particularly popular with users and were taken out of production after a few years.
1970 Seddon Atkinson took over and they merged to Seddon Atkinson , the production range and vehicle development of the two parts of the company remained independent for the time being. Atkinson introduced the Leader in 1972 , a tractor with a steerable rear axle. In the same year an 8 * 4 chassis for tippers was presented, which was motorized with the Gardner 150 . The company also used this engine in other heavy trucks. The Searcher remained in production and the 6 * 4 variant was popular as a chassis for concrete mixers. The focus of the production range, however, shifted significantly towards tractor units. With the Borderer (4 * 2) and the Venturer (6 * 4), two different types were offered. The chassis could be equipped with various engines from Gardner or Cummins .
With the takeover by International Harvester of America in 1974, the independent vehicle development at Atkinson ended , only the brand name was retained. For the vehicles produced from 1974 onwards, see Seddon Atkinson .
Web links
literature
- SW Stevens-Strattan: British Lorries 1900–1902 , Ian Allan ltd 1992, ISBN 0-7110-2091-4 (English)