My Martin Truck

On Saturday the 13th May 2006 I left the Eden Valley Railway after purchasing a small lathe and set of rollers to go for a hair cut. After my hair cut I decided to go up to the local scrap yard to see if I can find any useless junk. After finding a box of 12 halogen light transformers, a Lucas fog light and a Land Rover petrol filler filter, I had one last look around the yard. I stumbled across a 3-wheeled contraption, when I instantly thought "Autotruck!".

I quickly went back to find the scrap man to ask him how much for the pile of twisted metal lying on top of more scrap, and he said £50. I went back home and told my dad that I have 2 presents for him, but he could only have them if I could buy an Autotruck look-alike from the scrap yard. Once he saw the lathe he had to have it, and thus I borrowed a trailer and bought the truck.

Having driven a genuine Autotruck before, I sort of knew what they were used for, and more importantly, how bad they were to drive. Mine wasn't going anywhere under its own power though. Least because the engine, gearbox and axle was seized, but mostly because the front bumper was quite firmly wedged into the front tyre. The rear body was also squashed into the offside wheel.

1st thing I noticed, was it had an electric start. 2nd thing I notices was the hydraulic tank for the tipper, and thus the 3rd thing I noticed was that the rear tips up. I would have found this out the hard way, though fortunately the ram had also seized, and so the rear only moved about an inch when I jumped on the back.

After a little bit of cleaning, I came across the name Martin Trucks on the name plate. Currently the only other text I can make out is the letter E. I have since learnt that Martin Trucks bought out Bonser, who made the models before mine. The later ones had electric start petrol engines or diesels, and smaller wheels with chrome wheel hubs.

Mechanical wise mine is complete. It uses an Albion gearbox with 3 forward gears and reverse. The engine is a Kohler (8HP). Earlier models used a Villiers (5HP). It uses 2 drum brakes on the rear axle, so they should be quite good.

My truck is from 1975, so it is probably one of the very last ones made.

Pictures of when I bought it. I bought it as seen here:

The truck is 98% complete. Its just missing a battery, the seat, hydraulic handle and the tray back sides. These are not exactly hard to make.

There will be more pictures of its restoration later.

E-Mail: maltelec     @     hotmail,com (only without the spaces etc)

Also see my Land Rover page, including Mr Plod's page (the white LR in the picture).