This jumped off a coach at me at an Abbey Pumping Station event. Leyland made Cubs for over 30 years, and this particular model was coachbuilt by Yeates in 1958. Leyland liked jungle nomenclature for their vehicles, and growling around oil-slicked bus stations were also Tigers, Cheetahs and Leopards. And Gnus for some reason. Leyland. Is this the only vehicle manufacturer to take its name from the town they manufacture in? Oh yes, forgot Bristol.
Tuesday 2 August 2011
Creature Feature No 10
This jumped off a coach at me at an Abbey Pumping Station event. Leyland made Cubs for over 30 years, and this particular model was coachbuilt by Yeates in 1958. Leyland liked jungle nomenclature for their vehicles, and growling around oil-slicked bus stations were also Tigers, Cheetahs and Leopards. And Gnus for some reason. Leyland. Is this the only vehicle manufacturer to take its name from the town they manufacture in? Oh yes, forgot Bristol.
Husband was an apprentice at Leyland in the 70s and has told me about the antics the appentices used to get up to with the buses on the skidpan before all that Health & Safety stuff kicked in!
ReplyDeleteSkidpan. Lovely word. Reminds me of the opening sequence (in black & white) of Cliff's Summer Holiday, with a pre-Routemaster skidding around the Aldenham bus depot. Which, incidentally, is where the M1 originally finished, Crick near Rugby being the other end. Oh connections, connections.
ReplyDeleteA Bristol engined Lodekka was always a wecome sight and sound to carry me home from school. Gardner diesel engines also accepted.
ReplyDeleteRegarding vehicles named for where they were built, could we stretch to Bedford, even though it was Luton. Perhaps they should have been named 'Bedfordshire'.
Caterham fits the bill though.
It's pity that Armstrong Siddeley, Vanden Plas, Aston Martin and 'Vaux Hall' weren't the homes of the motors; as place names they sound authentic enough to be in an Agatha Christie 'Miss Marple' story.
Ah, if I've remembered correctly, Vauxhall was indeed named after Vaux Hall, the place that later gave it's name to the 18th century playground Vauxhall Gardens. The area became known generally as Vauxhall, where a local garage called Vauxhall Motors produced the first eponymous car.
ReplyDeleteThe early Vauxhalls were indeed built in London prior to the move to Luton. What about the Leyland Octopus, eh? Manufacturers often chose bird names...Riley for example with Kestrel and Merlin, Francis Barnett with the 'Plover' (although quite why any self respecting motorcyclist would wish to be riding a machine with such a name, beats me).
ReplyDeleteAston Martin was halfway named for its spiritual home which is Aston Hill near Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire.It was here in a hill climb that the marque scored its first competitve success,to the delight of its designer Lionel Martin.It was built at the other end of God's Own County (NO,not Yorkshire)......Somehow I doubt that a car called a Newport Pagnell would have achieved the same success.Just doesn't seem to have the same cachet !
ReplyDeleteWHOOPS .....! Pedantic Middle Son Who is Too Clever By Half has just pointed out that early AMs were built in Feltham.......Would the name "Feltham Martin" have done any good ? The mind boggles !
ReplyDeleteAnd at that time the only stuff worthwhile to come from Newport Pagnell was mustard,as any fule kno.
Sorry chaps.
Time for my lie-down!
When it comes to avian nomenclature there was also Humber, with their Hawk and Super Snipe. The snipe always seemed a rather unglamorous bird for such a large and would-be glamorous car, but there we go.
ReplyDeletePlover, Jon? That's a new one on me. (It's also one of the birds beginning with P that the Penguin group DIDN'T use as the name of an imprint.)
ReplyDeleteIf we can include motorcycles in this post, Peter, the Coventry Eagle was built in ....Coventry.
ReplyDeleteThe Dunkley Whippet and the BSA Beagle were generally reckoned to be a right pair of old dogs amongst the motorcycling fraternity.
ReplyDeleteMy Uncle Ray had a pale green and cream BSA Bantam. I would sit on it in our garage and make motorbike noises.
ReplyDeleteMy father had a BSA Dandy moped. Wonder if they did a Beano?
ReplyDeleteNo they didn't Ron. But my brother once owned a bright red NSU 'Quickly' moped. That's the name, not how he rode it. He also brought the first car into our household- a 1938 Standard 8 in battleship grey. Reg: JKO 506. Now that was a boring name for a car. But the first time in my life I went at 50mph.
ReplyDeleteRon, Harley Davidson made a Topper, though I doubt they'd mention it today, unless pressed.
ReplyDeleteThis is all very interesting!
I have just been told that a nickname for BSA machines in the motocross world was 'Beezer'. I hope this is true as for "comic" effect it's too good not to be.
ReplyDeleteWell, there is an 'Eagle' motorcycle and there was a 'Wizzer' (close enough to 'Wizard') so the comic references are there OP.
ReplyDeleteHow about the Excelsior 'Flying Flea' lightweight motorcycle dropped by parachute during WW2? Even the producers of the mighty Vincent motorcycle made a weedy model called the 'Firefly'...which was in truth a clip-on cycle motor. Back to car models with Standard making the bucolicly-named 'Avon' and 'Teignmouth' and Wolseley with their 'Hornet'. But for my money one of the best named 'bikes (even exceeding George Formby's fictional 'Shuttleworth Snap') must be the Grindlay Peerless. However I did once own an extremely rare pushbike made by Elswick (!) named 'The Avenger Convincible'...honestly.
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ReplyDeleteOh God the Elswick bicycle. One Christmas morning, around 1959 I guess, I received a bicycle bell as a present, even though I was bike-less at the time. But around ten o'clock my father said "Come with me" and we walked down the lane to Mr.Dalby's bungalow. Mr.Dalby was about 80, grew exquisite roses and had one of those waxed pinpoint moustaches. "Merry Christmas" he said, puffing on a briar pipe that only had a few glowing embers in the tiny aperture left in the caked tar. He lead me into a tropical greenhouse, through the glass the garden was white with frost. And there, propped-up against the wooden shelving heaving with terracotta pots, was a sparklingly new purple and green Elswick.
ReplyDeleteMight I suggest the Rochdale car? It was a sort of egg-shaped sports coupe made between 1959 and 1968, using Riley and Ford engines. Interestingly, for a tiny manufacturer, it was only the second ever car to be made entirely out of fibreglass (after the Lotus Elite).
ReplyDeleteYou never forget your first bike. Mine was an ancient and very second-hand item with semi-drop bars, but no indentification. It had been in the family for some time and was rumoured to be a Bentinck. Does anyone know if such a bike maker existed?
Don't know about a Bentinck bike, but I once worked for a Reg Bentinck in 1972. I never saw him on a bike, but he did drive a mushroom-coloured Citroen ID19 Estate.
ReplyDelete