Pregled posta

Marketing

Yes, there was such a thing! ... I've know three really good ones ;-)
Perhaps the best Ford bus I ever came across was this ex Highland Omnibuses example, CST 707N which arrived in our yard at Stonier's one day. Immediately the garage staff and I viewed it with scepticism expecting it to be as reliable as the proverbial chocolate fire guard and as popular as a pork chop in a synagogue with the crews. There'd been two other ex Highland Fords in the fleet up 'til then (KST 360/7G) and both were universally disliked. Under duress, preparation for service was carried out and a couple of colleagues and I got stuck in with paint brushes. Mechanical examination revealed it to be in excellent condition, and later our finished paint job set it off well I thought.
When released into traffic, it soon became flavour of the month with those who could drive, infact, even those who struggled with manual boxes seemed to enjoy it. The reason for it's popularity soon became apparent when it made increasingly frequent 'pit stops' for fuel. However, the latter wasn't for it's relatively frugal 360cu in turbo engine, but for a remarkably efficient (at warming!) diesel /paraffin heater it possessed. To be fair, it was an excellent bus to drive with plenty of 'go' and a good gearchange for once but in typical Ford style, it had overly fierce brakes.
Unfortunately, it's stay in service was cut cruelly short when one day leaving a side street in Hanley it's driver, seeing a 'load' on the opposite side of the main thoroughfare, pulled out into the path of one of the competitor's Bristol VRs. After the now customary 'ministry' examination which followed any Stonier's incident, the bus, with which no contributory fault was found, was deemed beyond economical repair.
Going off at a tangent, I'm tempted to speculate that the visible highlighted indentations in the road surface relate to the former 4 foot gauge Potteries tram network which closed in 1928.

I did these in my home made studio, i used dust sheets for a background and heaters in my garage ha. I was meant to have studio lights but i was let down by which time my clients had already arrived so my dad went and got some flood lights from work unfortunately being a dark room it was very poor lighting but i did as best as i could!the red in the images are from the stand up heaters but without them we would have died of being so cold!