As one of
the leading vehicle recovery specialists in Northumberland
George Thornton and his team were often called out to
difficult jobs by the police.
Northumberland has lots of narrow country lanes which can
present particular difficulty for recovery. If space around
the roadway is limited it can be very tricky for the truck
to be manoeuvred into a safe position which would allow the
damaged vehicle to be winched onto the platform.
George hit upon the idea that if the recovery truck couldn't
be turned through 90 degrees then why not build a revolving
platform on top of it which can! The ingenious T 180 tilting
slidebed moves backwards, and then swings around to face the
vehicle needing recovery.
It operates on a hydraulic system and can handle vehicles of
up to 2.5 tonnes. Once the slidebed has been rotated to face
the damaged vehicle the operator simply attaches the winch
and pulls it on board. Not only does this avoid the need for
difficult or awkward manoeuvres, but it offers a
considerable time saving and lessens the chance of further
damage to the vehicle which is being rescued.
Another big advantage for the police is that the Thornton T
180 allows vehicles to be recovered using only one
carriageway, thus allowing the road to remain open during
the operation. The T 180 is operated by a hand held
radio-control box which allows the operator to control the
recovery from the safest possible position, away from any
traffic which may still be using the road.
The remote control device is fitted with a fail-safe
mechanism which means that if the operator lets go of the
buttons for any reason - everything stops. It's also an
extremely useful piece of equipment in non-accident
situations. Because of its rotating slidebed the Thornton
T180 is ideally suited to removing or delivering vehicles
onto customer's driveways in confined situations.
This revolutionary tilting slidebed is easily fitted to a
wide range of commercially available chassis in the 7.5 -13
tonne range.
