chris1953

Hi Les, welcome to Big Mack Trucks. Fellow Brit here; now living in Canada. Plenty of UK registered Macks on the When Mack Roamed Europe, Middle-East thread. I'm sure you will recognize a few of them.

The Trucknet UK Forum has a topic on Mack trucks with plenty of detail of the Macks on British roads. There is a road test done with a Mack for the British transport magazine "Truck." April 1978. A very favorable result and I thought it would only be a matter of time before we were all running around in Macks. Alas, that was not the case. http://www.trucknetuk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=127603

Rynart are still in business and Rinus Rynart still takes an active interest in the company. They have the contract to supply the armed forces in Afghanistan with fresh food and run fridges overland from Westrn Europe to Kabul. Most of their drivers are from Estonia and neighboring states and ,alas, the trucks are no longer Macks. Er-San had a big mixed fleet of Macks and Fiats. Their base was on the western outskirts of Istanbul, just a few hundred yards from the Londra Camp. Their workshops were very handy for any repairs needed for any make of truck. A most friendly and helpful place but it was a bit disconcerting to see a couple of 12 year old boys stripping down a motor ready for a head-gasket change while the men sat around smoking and drinking tea. LKW Walter are still around although they don't have their own trucks. They are like C H Robinson, they have plenty of work and give it to the operators willing to work for the least amount of money. I pulled fro them from 1999 to 2004; up until all the east European countries joined the European Union. Overnight LKW Walters halved the rate. OHS were owned by a Turkish gentleman, OH Sutil; known to everyone as "Sooty." He loved everything American and especially Mack trucks. The fleet was based in Rainham, Essex, England, and ran to most Middle-East destinations. The drivers were a mix of Brits and Turks; great guys to run with and always helpful when crossing borders and dealing with paperwork. Besides Macks, Sooty had two GMC Astros with V8 Detroits and Allison transmissions.

That photo of the San Jose Mack at the Londra Camp brings back memories. That was a regular watering hole just outside Istanbul and every west European truck driver would pull in there on the way to the Middle East. I stopped there many times between 1983 to 1986 and there was always an Irani registered Mack F700 with trailer parked at the gate. The story was that the Iranian driver had stabbed an Iraqi driver to death in the restaurant while arguing about Sunni and Shia religion differences. Like all the truck stops on the Middle-East run; it had a bit of an edge to it.