"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
03/06/2015 at 12:14 • Filed to: Saab Scania
2
0|
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
03/06/2015 at 12:14 • Filed to: Saab Scania | 2
| 0 |
Moving on smartly, we find Scania-Vabis (they kept the Vabis until the merger with Saab in 1968) doing very nicely indeed in the Swedish truck market. They wanted to spread their wings and in 1965 they got a toehold in the UK market. At the time Britain was a bit of a walled garden with a little multitude of small makers - Foden, ERF, Leyland, Guy, Scammell, AEC, they went on and on - all tipping away at home and not overly concerned with continental Europe. Many of these worked on a kit mentality, buying in major components - engines, gearboxes, cabs - which was expensive but unavoidable when small numbers were being produced. Scania though were more vertically integrated, producing their own major parts, and as they got bigger their unit costs became lower.
Enter then the hitherto unknown Swedes. They came with all manner of unexpected features - synchromesh gearboxes, power steering (not universal then), quiet, comfortable cabs - and they kept right on coming. Thirty year later the indigenous British truck industry was gone and the only maker left was the former Leyland, now owned by DAF. With them went many their suppliers.
Here we have one of the first Scanias to reach the UK, the LB 76.
