Trantor International
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- Category: Trantor
- Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 December 2010 19:24
- Written by Jim Cordner
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Jim Cordner remembers :
After I was made redundant from Trantor they built the 6 cylinder 4 wheel drive vehicle which was purchased by JCB farms. (They apparently had a very good selection of Unimogs, and MB tracs together with 1 other Trantor). It was another 3-4 years before the Fastrac was born. I include some pictures, pre-digital era, below.
The MkII trantor was built in part of the old Foden works at Sandbach next door to the Saxon Fire engine workshops. The pictures show our production line with each bare chasis gradually fitted out adding axles, engine, gearboxes and cab and all the other components as in any vehicle assembly operation. Each unit moved to the next work station as it progressed through the shop. (we pushed them round) There were 4 or 5 of us working in the factory. There are also some pictures of us on a demonstration at one of the big vegetable growers near Boston, Lincs. I remember driving there from Stockport in the morning and driving back again to Stockport afterwards. There is also a picture of a snow blower sitting on a trailer, I think the plan was to sell them to airports for grass cutting, runway clearance etc. There is also a picture of the vehicle at Smithfield Show with lots of interest. One of the best memories of my time at Trantor was out on a farm where the farmer wanted to check out the trantor for pulling his slurry spreader. We hooked up the slurry spreader and went off across the field to the slurry lagoon where we attached a big flexible pipe that headed off into the middle of the lagoon. As soon as the pump started we realised something was wrong. The end of the pipe rose out of the lagoon like a very angry loch ness monster spouting sh*t in all directions. We just ran. Fortunately the farmer stayed and switched off the PTO and then proceeded to put it on to suck instead of blow! After the demonstration we took him to the pub for lunch where we had no trouble in finding a nice quiet table to ourselves!
Jim Cordner
Trantor production
Trantor production
Trantor on show
Trantor
Trantor
Trantor
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