Bantam Trucks - A Bevy of Bantams I have a small collection of Bantam Trucks that I acquired several years ago when I was into HO/OO and industrial types railways. Over time I've slowly worked on these vehicles - still going too. Maybe this blog will get me to eventually finish.

There's no point in having one service vehicle when you can ahave a collection.  I thought I'd build the vehicles together and here they are at a stage of 'mostly' complete.  These little vehicles were a bit of battle to build, despite the few components it was difficult to getting joins square.  There was quite a bit of filing and gentle bending.  Before starting I polished up the surfaces with a fibreglass brush.  Using the fibreglass brush requires a bit of care as the dust can be considered as dangerous.  I used disposable rubber gloves, the thin type the fit closely to the hand.  I performed the brush polisihing on a surface that could be cleaned up easily - old newspaper and in fact I also used a breathing mask and safety gogles, I also made sure I throughly washed my hands after finishing and cleaning up.

Bodacious Bantams

The Karrier Bantam was I'm led to believe a ubiquitous council vehicle in the UK.  I'm not sure of the years, I think it was probably 1950's/60's/70's probably finishing in the mid 1970s.  The typical arrangement was a chassis by Commer, a body/cab and then a special purpose utility body.  These vehices were used by Councils for day to day activities and often did not travel lengthy distances.  The small wheels assisted workmen in loading and unloading, the vehicles had little need for high speeds.  From the image of the cover of the sales brochure it can be seen that the intention for the use of the Karrier Bantam is for 'light' carrying duties.  

Try to Google up some images and a curious collection of utility duties can be seen.  In this brochure cover I like the speed streaks from the tires and the gleam.  I'm sure this was intended to give a Manager at a Council the impression that work would happen quickly.