Matador Gallery

I'm posting these pictures in the hope that it might encourage Antarmike to post a few more pictures - the poor guy must be gutted after all that work, and through no one's fault on here.

Come on Mike, you must be aware there were a lot of us hovering by the computer screen at around that "Matador of the Day" time of the evening. I for one am getting the shakes - withdrawal symptoms - please help.........

err, go on laugh it'l get better

AEC service depot Matadors....

If you remember the Lndon Transport converted recovery vehicles and their unique cab shape you will recognise the origins of this Mat, but it ended up at AEC's Nottingham depot as their service truck

And this is AEC's Coventry Matador service truck...

err, go on laugh it'l get better

Oh, Nick, that's priceless!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And their Southall depot Service truck

Same truck, real photo, not a posed publicity shot this time.

Cos these didn't go on long before the old board crash, I am reposting the last few Mats,

and these may not have been seen by everyone...

Last photo by permission of Arthur Ingram

That's the last of my most recent posts before the crash....

|Has everything really gone for good...Boo Hoo!!!

What a SHAME,...re the already posted Mat pics;.........

Just have to post them again, Mike.............LOL; (pleeeeease)

On the score of surviving matadors, how easy is it to identify details from a chassis no ??

Andy

What a shame, George Taylor, a friend of mine was eager to see your Matador gallery as he is restoring his round timber family's Matt, but then the crash! these are a couple of pics of his one.

This Mat was restored a couple of years ago by its' owner, Mike Gilbert, in Dorset.

Antarmike posted a picture of it unrestored and in need of TLC, any chance of posting it again Mike?

It had a mostly green cab with a wooden headboard and some red on bits of the cab. The giveaway that it was the same one was a v shaped metal frame with bits sticking off, on the drivers side a bit behind the cab.

This is how it looks now.

I have a question about the Matadors that I m curious to know ....in the photo of the R.B.Bates and the one of Henley's and in the above #28 post which by the is the first I ve seen with the cable actually being run forward , there appears a set of twin levers on either side of the radiator .What are they connected to or what do they do???????

Finally, a Matador fix! I had started to get the shakes.....

I have a question about the Matadors that I m curious to know ....in the photo of the R.B.Bates and the one of Henley's and in the above #28 post which by the is the first I ve seen with the cable actually being run forward , there appears a set of twin levers on either side of the radiator .What are they connected to or what do they do???????

The winch was mounted halfway down the chassis, and could be fed backwards or forwards. There was a set of rollers on the passenger side of the radiator.

That mat is easy to find.

Yes the winch rope will pass out the front, but as on the Scammell Pioneer and exlorer and the like it is only inteded to be used for self recovery when lead out the front.

Re winching forward the Cassis view I posted shows the route the winch rope takes to the front. Although the winch is in the middle of the chassis it always comes out at the rear between the two closely spaced pulley wheels that lie towards the offside of the vehicle, but when winching out the front it is apssed round the pully on the nearside rear corner of the chassis, thence over various guide brackets o get it past the airtank and the exhaust before coming out of two vertical rollers on the front on early Matadors or a cage witht wo horizontal and two Vertical rollers on later Mats.

The levers either side of the radiator are probably the Cab springing. The chassis is very flexible and the cab is rigidly mounted at the rear onto brackets on the chassis, but at the front the cab rests on plates, and there are twin bolts which pass throughtwo more plates rivetted or bolted to the cab, The bolts aren't tightened down rigidly, but only enough to partially compress fairly strong springs which under normal road use keep the cab in contact with the chassis, but in extreme off road conditions as the chassis twists, one or other corner of the cab can lift, compressing tfurther these springs, but preventing it from tearing itself apart,

I found that when I was using my Matador off road, loading trees onto my pole trailer with the jib, that everso often the horn cable would be trapped between these two plates, and I had to drive a wheel up on a log, to open up a gap to get the cable out again!

Whoever recabbed this one didn't understand the principle, because the front of the cab is left flexibly nounted, but the lower edge of the front wings are bolted to the new bumper that is rigid with the chassis!

What a SHAME,...re the already posted Mat pics;.........

 

Just have to post them again, Mike.............LOL; (pleeeeease)

 

On the score of surviving matadors, how easy is it to identify details from a chassis no ??

 

 

Andy

I haven't been keeping records up to date, but I can cross reference chassis number to quite a lot of Military and civilian registrations, and previous owners, but I haven't had the time to keep these listings up to date, the currency of my dated was lost in about 1995-6 but I have reasonable records up to that point.

The trouble with putting the photos back online is that I am going to have to go back to the original each time to check that I am giving acknowledgment to those people who have been kind enough to give permission to use photos they hold copyright on,

I have pulled photos out of many diffeernt albums, copied and posted them and put them back. Finding them again will need a lot of time and effort.

These are easy, noone has claimed copyright for these...

My present Matador on the Tractor pull at GDSF

My first Matador bogged at Rushden