Jim Davis wrote:
>
> Ken,
> Jacksonville, FL was the southeastern import site for BL. While your
> car may have been delivered to a dealership there, maybe this is the
> name of the importer rather than a dealership.
> The window sticker for my 1975 TR6, CF37325U has the distributor's
>name
> and address as: Leyland Motor Sales Inc. Southeast
> 1504 Jessie Street
> Jacksonville, FL 32206
For what it's worth, there were only two ports in the Southeast really
suitable for offloading cars--Jacksonville, and New Orleans. Lots of
importers used Jacksonville because the harbor allows deep-draft ships
very close to ground-level dock anchorage. When I lived in Florida, I
worked for a Toyota dealership and their importer was in Jacksonville.
Toyota had the routine well-engineered--their ships had side-loading
bays, and a shallow ramp was all that was required to place cars on the
tarmac outside the prep facilities. When a ship arrived, union teamsters
were called to move the cars. Each had a gallon can of gas, entered the
ship, fueled a car and drove it onto the parking lot. They could offload
an entire ship, 4500 cars, in less than three hours. Southeast Toyota's
facilities were, and probably still are, on Tallyrand Ave.
And, the ships themselves were pretty slick (don't know if British
Leyland ever thought of stuff like this)... the cars were anchored on a
deck by chains, the chains tightened, and the tires pumped up to 90 psi
to lock the cars in place. Each deck was on hydraulic cylinders, and
when all the cars on one deck were in place, the deck above was lowered
to within an inch or two of the tops of the secured cars, and the next
deck loaded in the same fashion. So, when the cars were offloaded in the
US, the ship could, on the return trip, take on containers of differing
sizes, loaded with fruits, vegetables and meat for return to Japan, all
by coordinating the height of the load containers and adjusting the
height of the decks.
Pumping up the tires to lock the cars in place was occasionally the
source of trouble... one old guy came in to our garage with a Tercel,
about three years old, with 87,000 miles on it, complaining about the
ride. "These tires ain't worth a damn, only 90,000 miles on `em and
they've rid like they was made 'a stone, and they're all worn out!"
True, there wasn't any tread left on them, and about 90,000 miles on any
set of tires was very good mileage, all in all (though we couldn't
convince the fellow of that), but when we took tire pressure
measurements, all four tires were in the 90 psi range.... Something
likely amiss at the port facility.
Cheers.
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