TRANSCONTI FOR(D)EVER

While in many ways Ford's last European heavy truck was a significant a trend-setter as the Tranny van, it was just too far ahead of its time. It seems hard to believe now, but in the late '60s ans early '70s Ford was big in trucks. Around 40.000 D-series rolled down the production line at Langley each year. Baldwin wanted to mark this succes by producing a flagship truck for Ford of Europe, and his first idea was a European version of the American Ford W-series cabover. But the cost of re-engineering it proved too much, so Charlie turned to Walter Manning, the former Guy engineer who had designed the D-series. His task was to produce a truck which would suit Europe's most demanding hauliers for the next decade. The truck, dubbed the Elba Project, had to have complete reliability, outstanding driver comfort and be easy to maintain. With these tough objectives and a limited budget, Walter decided to use the best off-the-shelf components available and blend them into a final design. So Cummins provided the engine, Dana Spicer the twin-plate clutch, Fuller the gearbox and Rockwell the single reduction rear axle. In fact most of the parts came from outside suppliers and legend tells that only 24 parts were made by Ford itself, and these included the large F, O, R, and D letters on the grille! AO Stone of America made the chassis side-members. Like those of the American W-series they had yield strength of 54 ton/sq in, more than double that if European models. The tough 5/16 in thick material meant the chassis could do without heavy flitching, but was impossible to drill by normal means. At one time, Ford offerd an option of eight holes drilled for 32, to ease fifth-wheel fitting!

There was no money to design and build a new cab, so the team settled on the Berliet cab, which had just won a design award at the Geneva motor Show. Protype testing of what was then known as the H-series got underway at Ford's Boreham proving ground. Reliability was taken very seriously. One test - dubbed the 'slippery boot'- involved starts at 40 tonnes on a one-in-six hill where, with the engine running at full torque, the driver deliberately slipped his foot if the clutch, deliviering an almighty shock to the driveline. More than 50 such test were completed without problems, but engineers were unsure how this compared to the competition. So they tried the same test with a Mercedes and when it broke a halfshaft on the first test, they decided the Transcontinental would be OK!

Altough Charlie Baldwin had wanted the H-series to be built at Langley, there was not enough space and a switch to Ford's  Amsterdam plant was on the cards. But by the time the truck reached production he had been replaced by another American, John Mclean, who'd been in charge of the Louisville plant in the States. His reaction was: "If the truck is going to be sold on the continent, it may as well be built there." March '75 saw Ford invite journalists from all over Europe to drive its new baby in Amsterdam. UK launch was Wednesday 30 April and the following Friday's Commercial Motor carried an eight-page report from then technical editor, Graham Montgomerie. "Drivers will love the Transcontinental,"he wrote. "I think the Ford must be a contender for the quietest truck I have ever driven. Visibility from the high cab was absolutely first class "It was the only time I have ever overtaken an F88 Volvo, looking down at it". While he praised the truck from the driver's point of view, he questioned its suitability in the UK because of its weight. Graham concluded: "At 38 tonnes on the European routes weight will be a negligible factor, but at our tiny gross weight limit it becomes more significant." He had hit the nail on the head. Britain had not long moved from 28 to 32 ton GCW, and payload and fuel consumption were uppermost in operators' minds. The Yom Kippur war of October 1973 forced fuel prices up from 36p a gallon to 53.5p a gallon by January 1975, and 61.5p by the end of the year. Incredibly, Britisch fuel economy standards were still set by a Gardner-engined Atkinson Borderer, which on road test in 1972 had achieved 7.5 mpg at an average speed of 36.2 mpg.

So when Graham Montgomerie ran the first full test of a Transcontinental in June 1975, this was the target to beat. The 340 BHP Transcontinental HA4231 running at 32 tons with a full-sized container pulverised the journey time with a 44.1 mph average, but at a lowly 5.9 mpg. Ford rapidly prepared a less powerful HA3427 and with Trevor Longcroft at the wheel and a flat trailer behind, it returned 6.45 mpg at 42.6 mph. Better, but still one mpg behind the best. The Transcontinental had not made a promising start. It did better on the continent. Tested against four other tractors at 38 tonnes in Europe by another magazine, it was the fastest up the hill and overall, but the fuel consumption of 5.3 mpg was still behind the 5.5 mpg average of the other four contenders. Fuel consumption generally was not so critical in Europe. And as one Belgian operator, getting between 6.3 and 6.6 mpg at 38 tonnes, said: "If you work hard, you have to eat and drink accordingly." The high weight was also a problem for the Brits. The Atkinson Borderer weighed 6160 kg, a full 1200 kg less than the HA4234. There was no way around this. Europe was working towards a 40 tonne limit and the Transcontinental had been designed for it. The so-called lightweight 34 tonne version had nearly the same unladen mass as its 42 ton stablemate.

 
       Updated Transcontinental with large Ford emblem on black grille                     Artist impression of Cargo III who never saw the light

Updated Transcontis were produced from 1978. The grille went from body colour to black and the FORD letters were replaced with the blue oval.The more important changes were under the skin. The heavy farr air filter got the boot, multi-leaf springs were replaced with lighter tapered components and the power-steering assisted ram was dropped. At the same time, the GCW gcw was raised to 44 tonnes and the engine was uprated to 352 bhp to give 8 bhp-a-tonne at 44 tonnes. Ford ended car manufacturing at Amsterdam in 1978, raising production costs for the truck. It struggled on, but the Transconti's fate seemed sealed when the loss-making plant closed in December 1981. Then in an extraordinary move, Foden began to assemble the Transcontinental at its Sandbach factory for Ford the following year in March. Against all odds, the Transcontinental was at last built and sold at a profit. Other events in the Ford empire finally did for the Transcontinental. The old D-series was replaced by the Langley-built Cargo, with modular cab design to span the range from 7.5 to 34 tonnes. Cargo I and II came in the early '80s, but the Cargo III which would have replaced the Transcontinental never saw the light of day. This would have used a more modern cab on the Transcontinentals chassis and driveline, and would surely have made its mark. But by 1983, the industry was in recession again and the Transcontinental production finally ceased in '84. Ford abandoned the European heavy truck market and the Langley factory was handed over to Iveco Ford Truck in July '86.
 

PRODUCTION FIGURES

Year	Amsterdam	Sandbach
1975	934	-
1976	1751	-
1977	1841	-
1978	866	-
1979	1340	-
1980	1078	-
1981	421	-
1982	-	260
1983	-	230
1984	-	14
Total	8231	504