York Trailer Co
of Summit Works, Burnley
of Corby (1958)
Fred W. Davies and James R Baird went to Canada as young men. Davies pursued a career selling truck trailers; Baird became a senior executive in vehicle manufacture. Both later broke away from their North American employers to set up their own organisation, the York Transport Equipment Group, based in Toronto and a subsidiary company, Davies Truck Equipment Ltd., in Rexdale, Ontario.
c.1954 Looking for export sales, Davies visited Britain; York Trailer was incorporated in England in 1955.
1957 York Trailer Co of Burnley produced a detachable stake and rack superstructure on its range of semi-trailers[1]
1960 Announced a new type of semi-trailer, known as the Trombone, that can be extended from its normal length of 26 ft. to 40 ft. to make it suitable for transporting long, indivisible loads[2]
1961 it was decided to manufacture basic components previously bought in, so a subsidiary company - York Technical Services Ltd - was incorporated for manufacturing axles, fifth-wheel couplings and landing gears. The output of this particular York activity has increased over the years enabling components to be sold to other trailer companies.
1966 York Trailer became a public company with the first manufacturing plant centred at Corby.
1976 Acquired Anthony Carrimore against strong opposition from Edbro. Carrimore needed additional capacity and the company's product range was complementary to that of York.
During the slump, the Corby plant was closed with the loss of 60 jobs. Instead body kits from Carrimore's Heselaw plant were shipped to Corby for assembly prior to export.
1977 York Trailer acquired Scammell Trailers from British Leyland[3][4]
1985 October: Bunzl acquired United Parcels[5], express parcels company.
1985 United Parcels acquired York Trailers[6]
1988 Bunzl sold its subsidiary York Trailers and other transport engineering subsidiaries to its management.[7]