Ergomatic - a standard cab, how hard can it be?

First introduced in 1964 the Leyland Ergomatic Cab was applied across the heavy truck ranges of Leyland Motors; Leyland, Albion and AEC. With some modifications to the design the Ergomatic Cab was to remain in production until 1981, with many smaller UK operators continuing to operate Ergomatic cabbed trucks until the late 1980s.

All this makes it sound like modelling a fairly boxy cab of known dimensions is fairly easy, well...

To suit individual operators each of the manufacturers tweaked the cabs by adding different headboards, tarpaulin stores and lights. AEC and Leyland, using different engines, took different approaches to the lower grille layout and Albion had their own ideas on branding. Of course all of the cabs on the rigid trucks were day cabs, the tractors followed the same pattern until AEC extended that cab to produce a 'sleeperish' cab for the Mandator tractor.

By 1968 things took another turn and Leyland replaced much of its 680 engined trucks with a new range using the 500 series engine, enter the Buffalo and Bison and out goes the facility to tip the cab, necessitating revised grilles and revised indicators - Ergomatic Mk2 had arrived. AEC got in on the act by producing flashy versions of the Mammoth Major and Mammoth Minor with chrome plating much in evidence.

In 1977 British Leyland gave the venerable Ergomatic one last spin to Mk3, revising both grilles and indicators again and re-introducing the Octopus chassis to run alongside revised Bisons, Bears and Buffalos for one last gasp before they were all replaced by the T45 series.

For now we've modelled up basic Mk1 cabs for Leyland and AEC and a late Mk3 cab for Bison and Octopus chassis. Check the cab range by clicking on the button below.