ck. Andrew & Andrew tru
Bus purchased for Aucklan d City Exhibition.
Commercial Vehicles in Auckland prior to 1915 Words Barry Birchall
Ryan & Co for ton truck imported by The Milner-Daimler 5 w Plymouth. Ne of m llu Cu Mr Mc
The first motor cycle arrived in Auckland in 1899, the first car a year later and these have been well documented. It was another five years before the first commercial vehicles arrived.
T
he Auckland City Council passed a resolution in 1903 forbidding motor buses and lorries on the roads unless the vehicle was preceded by a man walking with a red flag. I could not see where they enforced the law. Smith and Caughey purchased a single cylinder Cadillac through Dexter and Crozier in 1904. The van body was built by Cousins and Cousins in Lorne Street and it was 16 Beaded Wheels
first sighted on the streets of Auckland in October 1904. Smith and Caughey replaced the Cadillac in 1913 with a 15hp Albion. In 1904 W A Ryan imported three Milnes-Daimler 20hp chassis from England. One was sent to Mr McCallum in New Plymouth as a truck to move coal and the other two were bodied in Auckland by Cousins and Cousins with large tram-like bus bodies. The first bus, named Pioneer, seated 16 passengers and the second, Advance, seated 25. Pioneer was used on the run to Howick which started on 2 June 1904. The bus left the Northern Club at 11am and returned in the afternoon. There was quite a party in Howick the day the first bus arrived. When the vehicle broke down or got bogged, as it did in the winter,
Early truck , no further details avai lable.
they would send the mechanic out in a single cylinder Oldsmobile, or by horse and cart, to assist. It would have been no mean feat for the mechanic to move a three ton vehicle on solid rubber tyres stuck in the mud. It was reported in the New Zealand Herald at the time that the noise from the bus resembled a traction engine and that the ride was very rough. On 15 September 1904 the newspaper reported that the bus had broken four axles in two weeks and would be off the road for a few days. The horse bus had been taking two and a half hours to make the journey to Howick but the Milnes-Daimlers could make the journey in an hour if they did not peel off a tire, break an axle, have problems with the steering gear or get stuck in the mud. In October the Milnes-Daimlers were taken
