Hillhead/QMJ 2024

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Digging deep into construction machinery news

Wed 30 Jul 2014

Priestman Mustang fit for restoration

The Priestman Mustang 108S was launched by the Hull based company as a direct competitor to Hymac’s hugely successful 580C model. In fact when Priestman first launched this machine they gave it the numbering 580S, something that Hymac were not to impressed about, with the whole affair ending in a court battle which Hymac won, resulting in a change of number for the new Priestman which became the 108S. This machine of late 1970’s vintage and is still in excellent condition for its age, is resting in the Yorkshire area and Ollie’s mate Alan, who owns the yard he operates out of, has got the chance to own it. According to Ollie, Alan took delivery of the first one of these that Priestman built and would now like to restore this one and set it up at the entrance to his yard. The machine has a couple of buckets with it and is powered by a 6 cylinder Ford engine which is not actually the original motor. This one appears to have orange colouring underneath, which was of course Priestman’s original colour, but it could possibly be in the colours of George Wimpey which was an orangey yellow shade. I drove a couple of these for Wimpey’s back in the day and loved them compared to the Hymac, but for some reason they remained in the shadow of the Welsh built machines, possibly due to the fact that in the UK old habits die hard, a scenario that still applies today in some instances. Alan is also chairman of the Yorkshire branch of the Lighthouse Club, so let’s hope when the machine is restored it will be making an appearance on the club’s stand at Plantworx. This is a scan of the brochure produced when the machine was initially called the Priestman 580S before the company was forced to change the model number. We thank Ollie for sharing these photos and wish Alan all the very best with the restoration, hopefully he will share some photos as the work progresses in the future.

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