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COMMER KARRIER Humber Road 1905-1968
In 1926, after being in receivership several times, Commer was taken over by Humber, which in 1931 became part of the Rootes Group.
Commer was later famous as a maker of vans for the British Post Office — particularly the Commer PB and latterly the SpaceVan (marketed as a Dodge model; see below). These were rounded-front forward control vans with narrow front track — a legacy of their car derived suspension. Utilising at first the Rootes hillman derived 1500cc 4 cylinder engine in the PA series, then the larger 1725 unit in the PB.( a perkins 4108 diesel was also available). Although fiercely outdated by its demise in 1982 (the van was still 1950's technology, with poor performance, economy and handling) it remained a familiar sight in the UK thanks to its role with British telecom and the post office- who were almost solely responsible for it remaining in production for so long. The Commer name was replaced by the Dodge name during the 1970s following the takeover of Rootes by Chrysler Europe. After Peugeot purchased Chrysler Europe in 1978, the Commer factory was run in partnership with the truck division of Renault, Renault Trucks. It continued to produce the Dodge commercial truck range for some time, with Renault badges and a small amount of product development, eventually cancelling these in favour of mainstream Renault models and switching production at the factory to production of Renault truck and bus engines in the early 1990s.
Many Commer vans and lorries are notable for being fitted with the Rootes TS3 engine, a two-stroke diesel three-cylinder horizontally-opposed piston engine, which came to be known as the "Commer Knocker" due to the unique noise it produced. Newer Commer vehicles had Perkins and Cummins diesel engines, and less commonly Mercedes diesel engines.
