Commercial Vehicle Recovery

Following the growth of the car based schemes; the clubs began to look for new areas to expand into. An obvious area to consider was the commercial vehicle market and so NBRC launched a commercial scheme in 1976 under the name National Breakdown Commercial Recovery.
 

The first major contract was covering vehicles manufactured by the Bedford Motor Company. To commemorate this event John Rogers owner of Unity of Leicester (who had been a key part of getting the contract) had the above painting commissioned. It shows Ernest Smith and Bob Slicer and one of Unity's fleet, outside the original National Breakdown control at Lower Moor, Bradford.

In a very short time this grew to include Fiat, Magirus Deutz, MAN and Renault, as truck manufactures tried to compete with each other. Because of Ernest instance on giving each manufacture just what they wanted, the NBC's controls job become very difficult, making sure they followed the correct procedure (remember it was all paperwork then, no helpful computer console).

BRS (British Road Services) operated a commercially recovery service from around 1977 and perceiving the potential, took the Bedford Roadcall contract away from National Breakdown. This was achieved partly by using the large number of Bedford vehicles they operated, as a incentive to Bedford.

Both NBRC and BRS worked on the principle of offering their member, a fixed  hourly rate. The recovery operator actually doing the work, would also get paid an hourly rate, but slightly less than the rate member was charged.

Many respected operators at the time, wrote in the trade magazines about the stupidity of allowing their own customers to join a club, where the industry would still do their work, but for a significantly lower rate. 

NBRC and BRS the two market leaders, were soon joined by Bob Clarke’s Octagon Recovery of Horsforth nr Leeds. The company was formed in 1979, after Bob Clarke left NBRC. There was some recrimination at the time, but just a few years later Bob sadly passed away and Ernest Smith attended the funereal and spoke kindly of him (such is the nature of the people in the industry at that time).

At first Octagon operated in the same way as the others, but in in the summer of 1980 they introduced a new type of cover. Commercial Vehicle Operators were given the chance to pay a single yearly fee and receive a free breakdown and recovery service, in the same way as car drivers do. 

Transport Operators were deluged with smart glossy brochures (well smart for the time anyway) proclaiming why each particular organisation was the better than another. Click here to see one of the BRS ones and here to see a NBC one 

In a interesting twist to this section BRS would eventually purchased by the AA and merged into that organisation. Then shortly after Bobs death, Octagon became Delta and was then later purchased by the RAC.

Continue . . .

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