RECOVERY WORK REMAINS ONE OF ROAD TRANSPORT’S MOST DEMANDING DISCIPLINES, AND THE ELLIS FAMILY HAS SPENT DECADES SHAPING AN OPERATION BUILT ON EXPERIENCE AND JUDGEMENT. STEVE BANNER REPORTS ON THE FLEET, THE PRESSURES, THE INVESTMENT AND THE SAFETY REALITIES BEHIND THEIR ROUND‑THE‑CLOCK WORK.
Quickmission covers the Sheffield and M1 corridor with an eight‑strong Volvo recovery fleet. Operating from the Renishaw Industrial Estate near Junction 30, the team handles everything from buses stopped in city traffic to vans buried axle‑deep on rural lanes.
The workload ranges from motorcycles and light commercials to fire engines, concrete mixers and 250‑tonne excavators. Heavy recovery bodies, lighter hiab‑equipped rigs and roadside‑assistance vans give the fleet the capability to cover breakdowns, commercial recoveries and off‑road extractions across its operating area. The company is owned and run by Katrina and Andrew Ellis, who founded the business in July 1999. Andrew remains closely involved in frontline recovery work and says the industry was “an itch I wanted to scratch”.
His background with Volvo goes back to his apprenticeship at 16 in an independent workshop that handled a large number of Volvo trucks. “I cut my teeth on them,” he recalls. He entered road transport in 1988, buying his first truck at twenty-one-and-a-half, and has kept a small general-haulage arm running alongside the recovery operation ever since. It handles UK-wide pallet work and heavier transport moves, forming a steady part of the business that ties back to Quickmission’s origins in haulage.
IN A PLACE WHERE LONG MILES, AGEING FERRIES AND HARSH WINTERS TEST EVERY CALL‑OUT, LOCH SHIEL GARAGE HAS BECOME ESSENTIAL INFRASTRUCTURE. STEVIE WALKER MEETS THE CAMERON FAMILY TO SEE HOW VERSATILITY, INVESTMENT AND LOCAL COMMITMENT KEEP A REMOTE COMMUNITY CONNECTED.
Set against Loch Shiel’s spectacular backdrop, Loch Shiel Garage has grown from a small local recovery outfit into a diverse transport and vehicle‑services business. Based in Acharacle at the southern end of Loch Shiel on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, it works one of mainland Britain’s most remote patches. It is beautiful, but the logistics are unforgiving. Distances are long, mobile signal is patchy and single‑track roads, cattle grids and ferry timetables shape every job. The scenery pulls visitors in, with Glenfinnan and its viaduct now world‑recognised thanks to the Harry Potter films. Loch Shiel itself even stood in for the Black Lake on screen.
For Andrew and John Cameron, however, the job is less about tourism and more about keeping tourists, locals and businesses moving. The company runs 24‑hour breakdown and recovery, MOT testing, servicing and repairs, tyre fitting, vehicle sales and hire, plus recovery and haulage work. Call‑outs range from a family car with a flat on the school run to a motorhome with a gearbox failure on a pass, or shifting a contractor’s plant between sites. The common thread is doing it safely and reliably from a base a long way from the nearest motorway.
The brothers own and operate the business today, which traces its roots to the early 1970s. After a period of private ownership, Shiel Buses acquired it in the early 2000s. Through those changes the garage kept serving the same tight‑knit rural community, and that continuity remains central to how it operates.
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IAN MOULSDALE HAS SPENT THE PAST FEW YEARS BUILDING HIS RECOVERY FLEET – LITERALLY. HE AND HIS CHILDREN HAVE TURNED WORKING SCALE REPLICAS INTO A SERIOUS ENGINEERING PROJECT, COMPLETE WITH CUSTOM FABRICATION, A FULL YARD DIORAMA AND APPEARANCES AT NATIONAL SHOWS, INCLUDING THE TOW SHOW.
The C&J Recovery fleet, finished in its red and white livery and accented with reflective vinyl that comes alive under lights, makes an impressive statement and always draws attention.
For Ian Moulsdale, it’s a particularly satisfying sight. He and his children — Jack and, increasingly, Grace — have put a lot of work into the fleet over recent years.
But you won’t see C&J Recovery on the road. This fleet is a 1/14th‑scale model of real‑life recovery trucks.
Among the fleet is a Scania called the Pink Griffin, which Ian built for Grace. She wanted it in pink and silver rather than the usual red and white, so Ian created a separate division within the company and named it Unicorn Recovery.
Jack’s most recent build is a four‑wheel Scania nicknamed Stumpy, which began life as a standard Volvo 8×4 model before being shortened by about 10 centimetres. “This build was my most heavily customised project,” says Ian. “The original kit was a double‑drive, but we converted it to a four‑wheeler, which meant reconfiguring the suspension from a six‑wheel to a four‑wheel arrangement. A significant amount of work went into adapting the suspension to operate correctly with the wrecker back end we fitted. It was a complex build throughout, but it draws a lot of attention at shows because it’s a genuine one‑off.”
SCOTT AIRBRUSHWORK HAS BEEN MAKING VEHICLES STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD FOR DECADES. DAN PARTON MEETS TOM SCOTT, SON OF THE COMPANY'S FOUNDER ANDY, TO FIND OUT JUST HOW IT CREATES SUCH HEAD-TURNING DESIGNS.
If you have been to any truck show in the UK and beyond over the past few years and marvelled at the airbrushed trucks there, then you have probably encountered some of Scott Airbrushwork’s designs.
The company has been a well-known name on the truck customising scene for several decades, and has a broad spread of customers, from haulage operators wanting a spray-painted truck to celebrate an anniversary to bikers wanting a design on their helmet. “The range of work we have is really varied,” says Tom.
Tom usually works out of a paintshop in Barnsley, although he will travel to a customer’s location if the job requires it – usually if it is for something special. He typically has a couple of a trucks to work on every month, along with some more longer-term projects, although those are usually trucks that are being restored, rather than those that will be out on the road five days a week.
The company’s designs can be based on a customer’s specific requests but are more often a collaboration between Tom and the customer. “When we book a job in and we speak to the customer, I’ll create a computer-generated image of what we could do,” explains Tom. “I’ll come back to the customer with that, and then they’ll let me know of anything they want to add or change – although most of the time they’re happy with it and make minimal changes.
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BOB BEECH MEETS NS CLARKE TRANSPORT’S RECOVERY TEAM TO LEARN WHY THE STAFFORDSHIRE HAULIER BROUGHT BREAKDOWNS IN‑HOUSE, SHARPENED RESPONSE TIMES, AND INVESTED IN THE HEAVY‑RECOVERY KIT THAT KEEPS ITS FLEET AND CUSTOMERS MOVING.
Congestion does not wait while you source a wrecker. When a laden artic hits the barrier and rips out trailer axles, the gap between a two‑hour delay and an all‑day tailback is whoever gets there first with the right equipment and the authority to act. More than a decade ago, Rugeley‑based N S Clarke Transport brought recovery in‑house to control that outcome, building an end‑to‑end response from first call to clearing the carriageway and getting the load moving again.
Founder and managing director Shaun Clarke is frank about the trigger. Service standards had slipped locally and he wanted more say in how incidents were handled. With a core fleet of around 150 vehicles across tippers, powder tankers, walking‑floor trailers and curtainsiders, plus a sizeable trailer pool, there was enough demand to justify a unit or two. The brief was tight: look after the Clarke fleet and close the loop between workshop, traffic office and roadside. Then other operators, truck dealers and the authorities started calling. A fully fledged recovery arm followed.
Plenty of readers will remember when most hauliers kept a wrecker in the corner and dragged their own home. Back then the trade was still taking shape: converted 6×4 tippers, hand‑operated cranes and straight bars did the work. Professionalism soon followed. Purpose‑built kit, continuous cover and long‑distance tows made it logical for many to outsource, helped by dealer maintenance contracts that wrapped recovery in.
BOB BEECH FINDS OUT HOW MERCEDES-BENZ TRUCKS IS REBUILDING ITS PARTS PIPELINE, REBOOTING DEALER COVERAGE AND REFINING ITS DIGITAL SUPPORT. THEN HE PUTS ACTROS L, eACTROS 600, eECONIC AND AROCS 3240 THROUGH THEIR PACES AT MIRA.
We were at HORIBA MIRA near Nuneaton for a Daimler Trucks showcase of new aftermarket products and services for Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles, with time behind the wheel of the latest models too.
operators will know Mercedes-Benz Trucks ran into post-Covid parts supply issues, compounded in some areas by dealer closures. To its credit, the company has been open about it and is now investing heavily across the parts supply chain, dealer network and wider aftermarket to put things right.
The event ran over several days for operators and the dealer network, with the press invited on day one. We heard about new dealer points being established, notably in Scotland where coverage has been thin. Mercedes-Benz Trucks is working closely with partners to improve that coverage, blending private investment with manufacturer backing. Progress has been made, but the rebuild isn’t finished yet. A major new Ciceley Commercials site just off the M8 at EuroCentral near Motherwell is under way and set to open later this year. Other developments are moving fast, and approved repairers are being added at key locations. Fleet-Serv in Govan, Auto Services in Perth and AllTruck in Falkirk are all now in service, giving the network immediate extra strength on the ground. It will take time to bed in, but the scale and spread of activity show real commitment from both manufacturer and network.
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DAN PARTON MEETS JOHN KINNON TO LEARN HOW A DRIVEWAY START‑UP IN 2004 GREW INTO A THREE‑SITE RECOVERY AND REPAIR OPERATION SERVING ABERDEENSHIRE — AND WHY STEADY REINVESTMENT AND PRICING DISCIPLINE STILL SHAPE THE BUSINESS TODAY.
In 2004, working from his driveway, John Kinnon took the first steps towards what is now a thriving vehicle recovery and repair operation. Two decades on, he oversees three sites around Aberdeen and a smart, modern fleet.
The early effort paid off quickly. In 2006 he moved into his first premises at Westhill, just outside Aberdeen, and bought his first truck: a Mercedes‑Benz 814, originally a flatbed later converted to a beavertail. The premises were modest, but they gave him what he needed: parts storage, proper working room and covered parking for the truck.
John’s grounding has always been hands‑on. After leaving school he served his apprenticeship as a mechanic, before joining Stolt Offshore and working on deep‑sea and subsea equipment — diving bells, pressure testing, stripping down winches and repairing them. Further spells in Europe and Africa on undersea and deep‑sea repairs followed, but he eventually wanted to work for himself and returned to Scotland to do it.