Local hauliers (coach, lorry, etc.)

Here's one of my very early photographs - taken in the late 1950s using a Kodak Brownie 127. Canley Car Deliveries were based at Burton Green in those days. The Jaguars are 'prepared for export'

The company colours were what you might call tan and dark brown at the time of the photo - though I think they changed them later. There was another car delivery company in coventry in the late 1950s who did use the light and dark blue, though I can't remember their name.

I can remember 2 of them pixrobin, Tolman's and Progressive, I think it was Tolman's that had 2 shades of blue paintwork.

Mentioning the colour of trucks, can anyone tell me what colour AWAs trucks were? - I believe they were also two tone

Talking of car transporters. My father used to drive them in the middle to late 50's. I too had a fascination for these enormous lorries and how they got the cars onto the top deck, so one day I just watched my dad loading them. If I was on school holidays I sometimes went with him to London, places like Tooley Street near the docks for unloading. He was employed by a company based in Stoke Heath, called Motor Services. They only transported cars produced at The Rootes Group at Ryton On Dunsmore. Their fleet of transporters were painted a bright red with yellow letters and only consisted of Commer prime movers (CS3 models?) Probably they had a deal with Rootes as, of course, they manufactured them. One day he was given a brand new one and boy he was so proud of it you'd think he owned it! He parked this gigantic thing outside our house in the street at night - Sometimes he brought home armoured fighting vehicles from Alvis - great! They were the first company to experiment with a rear loading device, fairly common now, to lift heavy things from road level to loading height called a tail lift. I think you see them now on trucks used to carry 'fridges and washing machines. It was called a Burtonwood Tail lift and you just drove the car onto it, stood on the lift and pushed a button to take you and the car to the top deck. So simple but I don't think the early models were robust enough, so they didn't catch on Does anyone remember seeing car transporters owned by BRS (British Road Services) in the same livery as Motor Services?

Red House Motor Services, Bit of a cheek really, but I was reading about the "Italian Job" on another thread and it put me in mind of the older type of vehicles this company employed just after the war. Our school used to employ this company to provide coaches for away matches, and as I say this was approx 1950 not long after the end of the war. What should arrive but "The Old Grey Mare", well it got to the school playground, but required us all to get out behind and give it a run and a bump to get started again. Never joined in, but I heard the owner Tommy Venn owned race horses, his coaches made regular runs to many meetings, with of course his passengers backing his horses.

My father worked for every coach and haulage firm in Coventry from 1950-1989. He worked for all the coach firms, Bunty, Red House, BTS, Supreme, Godiva, Bantam. His name was Gerry Owens, everyone who was any kind of HGV driver knew him. He worked for Morton's, Capel's, all the car delivery companies, including trips to Europe. The only one of his bosses whose name I can remember is Frank Sefton, I think he was boss of BTS coaches. I have some pictures of him with our family posing by the coach he was driving that day. The only company I can identify is Godiva, you can see the badge on the front of the coach. The pictures are on my gallery site.

Just thought of three more haulage firms, Ellis Greaves, Lathams and Grimley's.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in years when Red House, BTS etc were big and strong companies there were restrictions on where certain companies could travel through, i.e. if you wanted a trip to say Bournemouth only companies with the paperwork for that area could travel through and to that destination, therefore smaller companies could only afford to do 'local' area trips

Think Ellis Greaves ended up in Siskin Drive before disappearing

Not sure if anyone is interested in this

Nice find Morgana