A mainstay of the transport industry in this country for over 100 years, Foden trucks has finally ceased production. Taken over by Paccar in the 1980's the marque was deemed to have sales too low to support continuation of the brand. Foden vehicles are found in large numbers on any fairground in this country, due to their rugged build, rot proof construction and easy availability of double drive vehicles.
As we tend to use older vehicles for our purposes, we will have a steady supply of Fodens for the foreseeable future, but inevitably we will end up having to move to a foreign make.
Now imagine if the haulage industry in this country had taken a leaf out of our European partners books. In Germany the top selling vehicle is German, in Italy it's Italian, Holland its Dutch and so on throughout Europe. In Great Britain the top selling vehicle is from any country except Britain. Perhaps if our transport companies had bought British then many of the historic vehicle makes would still exist, Leyland, Foden, Scammell, Albion, A.E.C., Thorneycroft are all gone. We regularly hear complaints from the haulage industry about manufacturing companies using foreign hauliers to move their goods, well that's poetic justice. If the heavy goods vehicle manufacturing industry had been supported better by the hauliers, perhaps their would be more British goods to be transported, leading to a stronger haulage industry who would need to buy more British lorries leading to more goods being transported and so on. Instead we have just lost another little piece of our manufacturing base.
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As we tend to use older vehicles for our purposes, we will have a steady supply of Fodens for the foreseeable future, but inevitably we will end up having to move to a foreign make.
Now imagine if the haulage industry in this country had taken a leaf out of our European partners books. In Germany the top selling vehicle is German, in Italy it's Italian, Holland its Dutch and so on throughout Europe. In Great Britain the top selling vehicle is from any country except Britain. Perhaps if our transport companies had bought British then many of the historic vehicle makes would still exist, Leyland, Foden, Scammell, Albion, A.E.C., Thorneycroft are all gone. We regularly hear complaints from the haulage industry about manufacturing companies using foreign hauliers to move their goods, well that's poetic justice. If the heavy goods vehicle manufacturing industry had been supported better by the hauliers, perhaps their would be more British goods to be transported, leading to a stronger haulage industry who would need to buy more British lorries leading to more goods being transported and so on. Instead we have just lost another little piece of our manufacturing base.