Anglo Italian

This Scania 143 is originally from Italy and was bought and customised for the British and European show circuit

- Dougie Rankine

Ken Thomas Transport is home to one of the best collections of old trucks you’ll find anywhere. There’s about 20 of them now, ranging from a pre-war Morris pick up to Maudsleys, Bedfords, Seddon Atkinsons, Volvos and Scanias. We really need to show you the whole collection at some point, but for now, we’re focussing on just one truck, the Scania which is tasked with hauling a living accommodation trailer to shows across the UK and Europe.

The man behind all the trucks is John Thomas. His father Ken established his haulage business in 1948, splitting duties between agriculture and driving, transporting produce such as potatoes and carrots from local merchants to markets with a pair of ex-military Bedfords. As time progressed, so did the haulage operation with the company expanding, moving a huge variety of goods and a providing a small amount of warehousing.

“We stored and transported finished foods for Chivers and had a contract for Jeyes, the cleaning material supplier. We transported all their stuff for several years” recalled John who is now 65. “I started off working in the yard and in the office, before going out driving aged 21 for three years.” When his father passed away in 1983 the company had around 20 lorries moving goods all over the UK. John then opted to come back to the office and run the business.

In the late ‘80s the company moved into warehousing and storage, starting off by adding 45,000sq.ft of space. “That brought in a lot of extra work for our own fleet” explains John.

Twenty years ago they were running 150 trucks, but he confesses that the business model wasn’t ideal. “We had a huge fleet, and enormous turnover, but it was so much effort for very little return. So we decided to re-focus and expand the warehousing, while reducing the fleet.”