Mustang 220 One of Priestman's Finest (Blog Post Re-Visited)

I'm on holiday this week, so posting up a series of old blogs that are well worth another look back at, starting with this one on the classic old Priestman Mustang 220.

The highly successful Mustang range was first introduced in 1967, starting with the wheeled Mustang 90. Over the following 20 years, the range developed to consist of nine different models. I have very fond memories of the Mustang range personally. When I was 13 years old I used to spend time on a site in Southampton on a Priestman Mustang 220, like the one in this photo courtesy of Jeremy Rowland

The 220 I used to operate as a lad was owned by Oldham based Queghan Construction, who were working on a deep sewer line contract through parkland just down the road from our house, the lads were all travelling men staying in caravans and I used to get their shopping for them, in return for the odd hour on the machine. Great experience for me, but of course in today’s PC world, it would never happen! The following photos which feature Mustangs that were sold into the German market, are kindly reproduced from the Historische Baumaschinen Facebook page

The Priestman Mustang was a big old piece of kit, even by today’s standards. It weighed in around 22 tonnes, was powered by a Perkins V8 engine and featured full servo controls. The machine was far more advanced than anything rival British manufacturer Hymac was producing, but for some reason the range always remained in the shadow of Hymac.

The cab on the 220 sat well forward from the rest of the upper-structure and provided excellent visibility down into the trench. The two servo levers were nicely positioned for the operator and had a good feel to them. Tracking was controlled by a multi position single short joystick, which was located to the forward right of the operators seat.

There can’t be many of these memorable excavators left around the world today, but the one in the first photo is still in use somewhere around the Birmingham area. I must pay it a visit one of these days before it gets a date with the “gas axe”.