B43kid

There we go - a Husky site ! Like this site as I like the Huskies Talking muttley talk, I am told (never held a husky) that my Bluey (Aussie blue healer dog)has twice the pull of a Husky, then again he a big boy for a Bluey. What dog represents an Isuzu I wonder, if I had one I'd call it Rusty. Now can I guess where the MIR Mack cabin came from ???

Hi Joe, Have moved out to Watta near Cowra. Pity to be the one to miss the Dubbo truck show. I hope to catch up when I get back from contract in ACT end or 2010. Been looking for an 8x4 and am offered a MIR-MSR600 but don't know much about them, hopefully somebody can shed some light on their spec. regards, Huey

G'day Barry, Just keeping in touch from Canberra in Oz. I have been offered a MIR - MSR600 = an 8x4 steel COE Mack cab chassis with Allison auto. I do not know much about them and am looking about for some advice/info reference the model designations i.e MIR and MSR.

I agree with you, that story is a MUST READ for Aussies !!!! You are correct, Cyril Anderson was sharp enough to see the diesel age coming in the very early fifties. (As a kid in 1956 I hung out in a yard with four B43's that came from Toowoomba assembly) He put knock-down kit B models together originally at Toowoomba and then down in Brisbane. The Leader truck came out of Cyril's inability to get Mack to agree to produce a "mid range" truck for Aussie conditions and he was losing sales to lighter rigs in the construction and earth-moving arenas. Paradoxically he ended up also building those great big WB (Wde bonnet) models to go up above 130 tonnes. As I understand it, you are correct, the first Leader was mostly put together in the Brissie factory but was finished off at Toowoomba. The cab was originally a phantom of the F model cab with a bit deeper space. Again it was Cyril's original resistance to fibreglass that shows his flexible mindset when he decided to beat the Fraser Island "rust bug" by going plastic. I believe he went to Melbourne for the early cabs and had some kind of proprietorship over them.

Well Mate we see so much of this F... U.. attitude in open society now, here down-under we tend to have still kept pretty much to the "stick by your mates" ( even when you don't know him) philosophy, but as you (or was it Bill) said, there is a tendency for the four wheeler behaviour (Aussie English spelling !) to seep in out here on "Sesame Street" (Hume Hwy Melbourne to Sydney) but generally we have the pressures of not so good roads and plenty of respect for and between truckies so consideration is still around. Almost universally we give the high beam flash for clear to move back (to the left !!!--- we go on the LEFT lanes here) and often car drivers will too. Since the slickest things on our roads are the 500HP and above B-doubles, it is often the car that gets overtaken. "Thanks Mate" LRL blinker is almost obligatory here, makes everyone feel more part of the same community, as we all are. Maybe we are half a decade behind the U.S. so perhaps we will be saying what you said today in five years time. BTW my only rig has four wheels and it eats rice! CAN'T AFFORD A MACK !!!!!!!!! --YET !!