Commer TS3
Videos
The Commer TS3 was a diesel engine fitted in Commer trucks built by the Rootes Group in the 1950s and 1960s. It was the first diesel engine used by the company.
1959 Commer truck designed to take the "flat" TS3 engine with its horizontally mounted cylinders. With the engine mounted beneath the floor of the cab, the bonnet (hood) of the truck could be dispensed with. The windscreen and driver were then moved to the front of the vehicle, resulting in the UK's first short-cab lorry, with a cab over design that avoided the excessive height of the tilt-cab Bedford QL.
Rootes Group
Videos
The Rootes Group or Rootes Motors Limited was a British automobile manufacturer and, separately, a major motor distributors and dealers business. Run from London's West End, the manufacturer was based in the Midlands and the distribution and dealers business in the south of England. In the decade beginning 1928 the Rootes brothers, William and Reginald, made prosperous by their very successful distribution and servicing business, were keen to enter manufacturing for closer control of the products they were selling. One brother has been termed the power unit, the other the steering and braking system.
The Rootes Maidstone on Mill Street, Rootes' factory building c. 1948
William Rootes, founder
A Bristol Blenheim bomber
Hillman Minx Series IIIC. The "Audax" Minx (Series I to VI) was designed by Raymond Loewy.