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Thames Trader 55 Benzine – British truck with a six-cylinder petrol engine: 4,076 kg unladen weight, 2,260 mm wide, 2,740 mm wheelbase, EU class N2
Thames Trader was a commercial-vehicle brand of Ford in Britain, under which the company offered medium-sized trucks for the British market. The version recorded here, the 55 Benzine, is fitted with a six-cylinder petrol engine; no exact build year is given in this excerpt.
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The engine has six cylinders and runs on petrol. At a wheelbase of 2,740 mm and 2,260 mm wide, the Thames Trader already weighs 4,076 kg unladen.
An unladen weight of over 4 tonnes sits well above the 3,500 kg threshold for light commercial vehicles; the gross vehicle weight must accordingly be substantially higher than that of any light van. This places the Thames Trader firmly in the EU N2 class of medium trucks between 3.5 and 12 tonnes, and clearly not among light vans up to 3.5 tonnes.
When buying such an old British truck, the condition of the frame and the leaf springs matters most, as corrosion on load-bearing parts is common on commercial vehicles this age. The availability of parts for the six-cylinder petrol engine should also be clarified, as petrol engines in this vehicle class were later largely displaced by diesels and have become correspondingly rarer, making running examples something of a curiosity today. Brake drums and wheel bearings should also be checked for wear and play given the high overall weight, as both are worked especially hard on a chassis this heavy.
Sources: SpecCodex-Register: Kennwerte des Modells Thames Trader 55 Benzine
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