Old School Trucks: Banks Peninsula Transport

In this month's installment, Deals on Wheels takes a closer look at the Banks Peninsula Transport fleet

Banks Peninsula incorporates Lyttelton Harbour, Akaroa Harbour, and many well-known and frequented bays in between. Let’s also not forget the small town of Little River nested between both harbours, and while in recent years the township has been a hot tourist spot, it’s also home to Banks Peninsula Transport.

Back when my interest in trucks was gathering momentum in the early 1980s, two transport companies wore the same livery: Governors Bay Transport (Governors Bay is a bay within the Lyttelton Harbour) and Banks Peninsula Transport (BPT), which was a sister company that was to become one and the same.

Formed by volcanoes, Banks Peninsula is home to a large rural community with some of the most challenging access roads in the country, and this led to BPT being largely a six-wheeler fleet with three- and four-axle trailers.

Needless to say, the livestock trucks left their trailers at a suitable spot to tranship the sheep and cattle. Better steering locks in the 1990s led to more 8×4 twin-steer trucks in the fleet, however, six-wheelers are still utilised to this day in the tightest of applications on the Peninsula.

As a kid I remember photographing an International T-line back in the early 1980s, however, that picture is currently lost within the collection and the Scania brand is where we start with this feature, and there were plenty.

Japanese trucks also graced the fleet and a lone Volvo F12 also did some hard yards back in the 1990s. Fast forward to the mid-2000s and the Righton family of Ellesmere Transport acquired BPT, culminating in a livery change, which, in my opinion, was one of the largest contrast changes for a transport fleet that I can remember.

To be fair, the original livery was not overly inspiring to the eye, but the change to bright yellow and lime green certainly changed that perspective.

Ellesmere Transport has long been supporters of the Volvo and Mercedes-Benz brands, however, Scania has remained the dominant brand of choice within the BPT fleet, which no doubt helps the sister companies ascertain long-term efficiency comparisons between the Swedish and German brands.

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Photography: Dean Middleton