Author, Malcolm Bates, admits he was faced with a task of ‘Mission Impossible’ proportions in trying to distil the history, life and times of Leyland within just 100 editorial pages. Especially as that mission included the need to locate and caption somewhere in the region of 250 photographs and items of artwork covering a period from the start of the company in the 1890s, right through to the end of Leyland as a British-owned manufacturer as a result of the takeover by DAF.
This latest edition in our Vintage Roadscene Archive series, ‘Leyland - Diesel Lorries for the World’, does, as the title suggests, cover the fact that Leyland played a key role in boosting the UK’s balance of payments over many decades, while also retaining the position of a market leader in the home market. This diversity is reflected in Malcolm’s choice of images, which are matched with informative captions benefitting from his professional career as a vehicle industry journalist.
In making the choice of images, many of which come from the Stevens-Stratten Archive, priority has been given to featuring genuine ‘works’ photographs, those issued by Leyland as part of contemporary press releases, while also looking at how images were used in Leyland brochures and advertisements.