Page 2. SD Enthusiasts' Club Magazine - Summer 2008.
TWENTY - FIVE YEARS ON - The View from 1983.
For The Institute of Waste Management Conference at Ayr in the Summer of 1983 a special edition of Shelvoke News was produced. Edited by Malcolm Bates, Shelvoke News announced the Square Deal Program (sic) and catered for Malcolm's choice in puns for headlines which included:-
Six Appeal for an article about 6x4's.
Square Deal - Round Tyres, announced the new Dunlop SP811 tyre.
A Nice Line in Rubber Wear was about Norde Suspension's rubber suspension system.
The Square Deal Programme was devised to revive Shelvoke sales and involved updating the P series. Improvements were made to the cab and three compaction systems were offered:- the existing Revopak and Maxipak plus the new intermittent loader the RouteChief. The bodies were squared off to increase capacity and reduce construction costs.
The 1983 'P' Series showing the squared off re-design of the body.
Basil Barber the Sales Director announced the appointment of David Heaton as Sales Manager Municipal Vehicles and Steve Woodward was appointed to the Central Southern England area.
Left to right:- Basil Barber, David Heaton & Steve Woodward.
Shelvoke also announced the building of a prototype 30 tons GVW RouteKing on a Scammell Constructor chassis.The finals of the Supercrew contest were held on 11th June at Donnington. For this series of tests a fleet of Revopaks fitted with Detroit Allison automatic gearboxes and Perkins T6 Turbo diesel engines were produced. The winners were Richmondshire from Yorkshire followed by Westminster and Canterbury.An article about Glasgow Markets Department noted that Glasgow's large fleet of refuse collectors was predominantly on Shelvoke chassis. Biffa Waste Services had just had their fourth Dumpmaster Front End Loader delivered, with twenty units completed in the first twelve months of production.
That's how things looked twenty-five years ago.