Caledon Motors
Caledon Motors was a British commercial vehicle manufacturer . The Glasgow- based company produced various trucks and buses from 1915 to 1926 .
history
The Scottish Commercial Ltd of Duke Street, Glasgow was a trading company, the truck brand Commer sales. The owners were the brothers Harry and Edmund Tainsh . With the outbreak of the First World War , the Commer trucks were no longer available for the civilian market. As the company's main line of business threatened to collapse, Scottish Commercial decided to design and build its own trucks and buses . In addition to the Tainshs, the New Zealand engineer Sam Gilchrist , who was employed as a designer and salesman, was involved in the development. Initially, motors from Dorman and Dux gearboxes imported from France were used.
The first vehicle was produced in 1915. The production range soon included a number of chassis with a payload of 3, 3.5 and 4 tons . The vehicles were simply constructed with a longitudinally mounted engine and double chain drive typical of the time . They suffered from problems with the rear axle construction and other shortcomings. Approximately 280 vehicles had been produced by the end of the war, 76 of which were able to be delivered to the UK Ministry of Munitions after a first lot was rejected due to quality issues. Most of the vehicles found civilian buyers.
1918-1926
After the end of the war, the company's name was changed to Caledon Industrial Motor Vehicles . The vehicles continued to be manufactured at the Duke Street plant. Vehicles with payloads from 30 cwt (= 1,524.07 kg) to 7 tons were now produced . Motors from the US manufacturer Hercules resp. Buda and, increasingly, self-developed slide motors .
Gilchrist left the company and was managing director of the nearby General Motors (Glasgow) Ltd for a few months before setting up his own automobile production facility in September 1920. It appears that his Gilchrist Car Company received assistance from Caledon Motors .
The model E , first produced in 1919, was powered by a four-cylinder engine with a 120 mm stroke and 140 mm bore developed by Caledon. With a total mass of around 4 tons, the maximum speed was 12 mph (= 19.308 km / h). The wheelbase was 14 ft (4.26706 meters) 3 in (7.62 cm).
After the war ended, the UK market was flooded with cheap, high-performance trucks from the military's inventory, causing the new vehicle market to collapse. Together with the lack of fresh capital, this development led Caledon into financial difficulties in 1922. However, in 1924 the first truck with a double axle appeared, which was the first to have a payload of 10 tons without being designed as a semi- trailer .
Eventually the company was taken over by Richard Garrett & Sons in 1926 .
Bus production is estimated at around 700 units.
literature
- SW Stevens-Stratten: British Lorries 1900-1992 , Ian Allen Ltd, Shepperton, 1992. ISBN 0-7110-2091-4
- GN Georgano (Editor), G. Marshall Naul: Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles ; MBI Motor Books International, Osceola WI (1979); ISBN 0-87341-024-6 ; Hardcover
- David Culshaw & Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895–1975 . Veloce Publishing plc. Dorchester (1999). ISBN 1-874105-93-6 (English)
Web links
- Company truck from 1920
- Grace's Guide: Scottish Commercial Cars (accessed June 3, 2015)
- Grace's Guide: Caledon Motors (accessed June 3, 2015)
- Dorman Diesel Homepage (accessed June 3, 2015)
- WHDorman & Co on Wikipedia (English) (accessed June 3, 2015)
- Grace's Guide: Gilchrist Car Company (accessed June 3, 2015)