Are Long Nosed Trucks With Big Spacious Sleeper Cabins Legal Within the UK?

I don’t know if they had a sleeper version. If they did it most likely would have been an aftermarket add on. They only built that model from ‘59-62 and it is extremely rare today. SightLiner didn’t sell well because the extra windshields were not liked by drivers. If you look close you can tell they were built using the Loadstar cab which became the V-series cab which was even used on tons of School buses up into the mid 1970’s.

 

I'm just old enough to remember one of the old LTL carriers still using one for local work (maybe it was Mushroom??), but I'm pretty sure these were used only in 2 ways; 1 was local work, as it was primarily designed for that, and the other was as a special "Iowa only" linehaul, back when Iowa had the ridiculous 45' max overall length law. A lot of linehaul companies like P.I.E. used to keep a fleet of either these or old 'bullnose' COE's just to pull their trailers through Iowa.

My Godfather used to drive a Freightliner drom-box rig (20' box on tractor, dual steer, dual drive, pulling a 2-axle 40' trailer) on the LA-Denver run, switching trucks in Green River, Utah. This was a route through the hardest part of the Rockies. From there, P.I.E. would hook the 40' trailers onto long-nose White day-cabs off to the next run. A few of them no doubt towards Chicago or the Twin Cities (Minnesota), so THOSE would no doubt close-couple one of these sorts of things to just get it to the other side of Iowa, where a more suitable power unit would be used for the last bit of the relay.

 

Twenty years ago, I had a monthly subscription to the British magazine "Truck". I remember a large article about these models, and the incredible amount of space inside of them. There were multiple interior arrangements available. In most, the upper bunk was the largest, some did away with the lower bunk entirely for more storage space, there was even 1 layout which only had 1 seat, freeing up space on the passenger side. Seats would swivel around and the steering wheel would fold forward, and curtains would cover all the glass when parked. Sleeping on the upper bunk, well away from the cooling engine, with airflow from the door windows and the pop-up sunroof meant you probably didn't need air-conditioning overnight.

These were also the early trucks with FULL cab isolaters, and there was a wide range of engines, up to an optional Mack V-8. The only downside I could see with these was that, especially with a continental single-screw, it looked like it would be quite a handful to drive bobtail. Although, being French, they loved putting HUGE fuel tanks (back then, fuel in France was significantly cheaper than any of the other countries around them), so I expect that an full tonne of fuel on board would help with that. Todays Scanias fill in most of the same boxes (including a large V-8 that even Mack no longer offers), and most have at least a drive-and-tag axles on the back, with FULL air disks and air ride on all axles.

 

Mine did not have a swivel seat but the back of the passenger seat folded down flat to provide a good table top for eating from or even, with a suitable bowl, having a strip wash. This latter was rarely needed in France with its Routier restaurants for drivers in abundance throughout the country with all the usual facilities available including proper French cooking with nice wine to wash it down. In many of them we ate the traditional French way, all together on long tables, excellent for the camaraderie which was/is the mark of French routiers anyway. We Anglos living or driving in France used to have a joke about our compatriots in Britain. It was that in a traditional British transport cafe (no alcohol, just pint mugs of tea ) if it had 13 tables the place was full after the 13th driver arrived. British reserve in the extreme.
I slept in the bottom bunk, more headroom with the top one hitched up a bit out of the way. Can't remember the hp but it was the Renault engine not the Mack one and the only thing I found to complain about was the German ZF gearbox. To change range needed a violent bang left or right in the neutral position, caused a lot of wear and tear on my right elbow. ;-(
You mentioned Truck magazine. It was very good, previous ones did not really cover a driver's life, but some of us bridled at the title as being too American. We, and I often still do talk of lorries rather than trucks, but as so often is the case it was our word from before the USA was invented which travelled west and then bounced back again.
It was the Swedes, and later the Germans, who brought us our first sleeper cabs, in the '60s or '70s I suppose. Before that we used to sleep overnight in driver's 'digs', bed and breakfast establishments that also provided an evening meal and catered for early departures in the morning. There were good and there were bad and also far too many bloody awful, hardly surprising that often we preferred to pile up clothing and suitcases on the seats to sleep across the engine. No night heaters so sometimes in freezing weather we idled the engine to keep warm, not that the heaters were much good but with trucks, unlike the Americans and their tall stacks, which had exhausts blowing out at ground level and it was entirely possible, if the wind changed direction, to not not wake up but be dead in the morning.
Sorry, old driver, too many memories, but why did we like them? Freedom.