In 1934 AEC added an “auxiliary axle” to their six-wheeler goods model to increase the lorry’s payload and the archetypal British heavy goods vehicle was born.

With a lightweight platform body and Duramin cab the Mk II Mammoth Major which superseded the Mk I in 1935 could carry a legal payload of 16 tons which expressed as a percentage of its gross weight is 73%… the very latest modern artic might just achieve a ratio of 68% so modern day engineers have still some way to go to match what was accomplished by AEC over 70 years ago!

Sixteen tons of housebricks works out at about 8,000 bricks all loaded and unloaded by hand, no wonder people were fitter in those days.