Vulcan

 

The Vulcan Motor and Engineering Company Limited, of Southport, England, made cars from 1902 until 1928 and commercial vehicles from 1914 until 1953. Many Vulcan trucks found their way Down Under, but very few survive.

 

In 1902, brothers Thomas and Joseph Hampson founded Vulcan Motor Manufacturing and Trading and built the first Vulcan 4hp car. A 6.5hp shaft drive model with ‘armoured ash’ chassis followed and steel-chassis models came in 1904. In 1905, two- and three-litre, four-cylinder types appeared and the company moved into larger premises

A van version came in 1906 along with large 4.8-litre, six-cylinder models and another factory move was necessary, along with a change of company name to Vulcan Motor and Engineering. 

The six-cylinder model grew to six-litres capacity in 1908 and, at the outbreak of World War I, a 30 hundredweight(cwt) 1.5-ton truck was offered. This model saw use as an ambulance in Britain, India, Belgium, Russia, and Portugal. During the War, the factory concentrated on producing munitions. 

In 1916, the Hampson brothers left the company and it was reformed as Vulcan Motor Engineering (1916) under the control of C B  Wardman. 

In 1918, the company bought Southport Football Club that was subsequently renamed Southport Vulcan and thus become the first UK football club to take a sponsor’s name.

Some Vulcan vehicles featured a distinctive ‘blacksmith’ radiator-cap ornament.

 

 

The BTMC fiasco

 

In 1919, Jack Harper Bean, owner of Bean Cars, acquired 75-percent of Vulcan in a complex cash and shares deal under the auspices of the British Motor Trading Corporation. Bean’s intention was that Vulcan should be responsible for producing commercial vehicles, but Vulcan car production continued. 

 

Harper Bean meets Vulcan’s ‘blacksmith’ mascot

 

Within the first five months of 1920, The British Motor Trading Company had achieved the manufacture and delivery of 1000 Vulcan commercial vehicles and cars: establishing a new record for the British Automobile Industry. However, the Bean-BTMC co-operation soon soured.

By July 1921, Harper Bean believed that BTMC was: “expensive and grandiose” and proved to be an inefficient organisation. Unfortunate transactions were entered into, hampering success and Bean itself was soon in financial difficulty, making the BTMC irrelevant. Bean was taken over by Hadfields in 1926 and the BTMC eventually was formally dissolved in 1932.

 

1924 Vulcan demonstration truck – National Library of Ireland

 

In the meantime, Vulcan continued with car and truck production, with 1.5- and two-ton trucks being powered by a 3.7-lire Vulcan engine. In 1926 came three-quarter-ton military light trucks and heavier, four-ton units, with four-cylinder engines and a six-cylinder Dorman bus chassis.

The final Vulcan cars were the 14/40 (1927–28) and 16/60 (1928–29) with their own design, twin-camshaft six engines of 1.7-litre and then two-litre displacement. These engines suffered from poor design and inadequate lubrication, which damaged the Vulcan car reputation fatally.

 

1926 Vulcan

 

Resulting financial problems came in 1928 and C B Wardman resigned. Lea Francis took over Vulcan car production, but couldn’t make a success of it, either. 

A 6.6-litre Vulcan-engined 32-seat bus came in 1928 and the Emperor double-decker in 1930.

 

 

From 1930, Vulcan production was solely trucks and buses, but the effects of the Great Depression sent the the company into administration in 1931, reducing production to small volumes.

Brockhouse Engineering took over Vulcan in 1937 and managed to keep production going until 1938, when the truck and bus manufacturing part of the company was sold to Tilling-Stevens, a bus manufacturer of Maidstone, Kent.

 

Vulcan engine

 

Vulcan petrol-engined trucks and Gardner diesel-engined trucks re-entered production, alongside a new five-ton, Perkins-engined lorry. Six-ton Vulcans were produced in large numbers during World War II, including some that were converted battery-electric power, because of the restrictions on the use of petrol and diesel.

1930s Vulcan 6×4 military truck

 

After the War, six-tonners and heavier articulated trucks were built in volumes around 1000 per year. A new Vulcan seven-tonner appeared at the 1950 Commercial Motor Show in London. 

 

1949 Vulcan 4.2-litre – Charles01

 

Vulcan’s market success caught the attention of the growing Rootes Group, which took over Tilling-Stevens in 1951. The Vulcan range bolstered Rootes’ Commer and Karrier brand lineups until they introduced their own heavier trucks, when Vulcan and Tilling-Stevens brands vanished finally, in 1953.

 

 

Vulcan Down Under

1929 loaded Vulcan truck – V Peterson

 

It’s not known how many Vulcans were sold in Australia, but an editorial in a 1924 issue of the Advertiser newspaper in Victoria, ran as follows:

The Vulcan Motor Company (whose advertisement appears in this issue) was established 25 years ago and the history of the Company is a long record of serious endeavour to produce cars and vehicles of the utmost value: utility cars of sound design and sturdy construction, at a price to appeal to the man of moderate means. 

Vulcan vehicles are British-built throughout; they have atwenty-five years’ reputation and their exceptionally low prices make them far and away greater value than any other vehicles on the market.

Vulcan productions are all fitted with steel wheels, which are not affected by climatic conditions. 

They are eminently suitable for colonial use, which was proved by the West African Lighterage and Transport Co Ltd, of Coomassie, after exhaustive tests in Britain and in Africa, giving the Vulcan Company an initial order for 300 vehicles to replace the fleet they had then in use.

The Transport Company found that the cost for repairs and maintenance on their other trucks had been so enormous that they decided to discard them and to concentrate in future on British vehicles. 

Sales and Service Agents for Vulcan in Victoria and Tasmania are Robinson’s Motors Pty Ltd, 395 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, from whom further particulars may be obtained.

 

 

This 1922 Vulcan is in the Gippsland Vehicle Collection and was resurrected from an old brick kiln in Penrith, NSW, where it was found in a rusty, neglected state. Restoration was completed about 1990 and included replacing many missing items, including a reproduction ‘Blacksmith’ radiator mascot. 

This truck is significant as it is representative of the early type of hand-cranked Vulcan trucks used in the Maffra district, particularly in the dairying industry. Although commonly used in the period, it is now rare, as not many have survived. It has cast iron wheels, with solid rubber tyres, at a time when most vehicles were using pneumatic tyres.