BRILLIANT BEDFORD
Surrey-based Cliff Benton had one objective when, back in the early 1970s, he started in road haulage. He wanted to own, and operate, his own lorry. Through hard work and determination, he achieved that by the time he was 25.
What’s more, despite more than a few difficulties along the way, he went on to make a massive success of it, and has remained in the industry, as his own boss, ever since. What’s more, though he is now winding down, at one point he employed five people.
Like so many others at the time, Cliff found Bedfords to be the ideal lorries for owner drivers, and quickly came to respect their reliability, value for money and ease of repair. His first was a KM, but it was followed by two TMs. Consequently, when it came to choosing a preserved pet to take into retirement as a hobby-lorry, there really was only one make in the running…
This particular TM (a 32ton GCW ENV8TD0) also has a rather unusual history, which in turn made for a slightly unusual restoration. We’ll come back to that in a moment though. First, as this is something of a personal story, we need to put Cliff’s TM into context.
Prior to
