Spijkstaal is a Dutch manufacturer of a wide range of electric vehicles for the commercial market. The company was founded in 1938 and in its homeland it’s best known for their mobile grocery stores of yore. Some current products are tiny tractor units and the so called burden carriers, basically small pickup trucks.
With its enclosed steel cab and the flatbed with dropsides, this little fella truly is a downscaled heavy cabover truck. I’d say it’s about 25 to 30 years old.
The local shipyard has at least two of them, no doubt about that. These are used as handy runabouts to carry equipment and tools around the yard.
As for the video, in the 1986 movie Flodder, a Spijkstaal grocery store played a rather prominent role. There are plenty of other curbside classics to be seen too, an old piece of Americana included (right at the start). Generally, we’re not exactly renowned for our delicacies -in the broadest sense of the word- and the whole movie is definitely no exception to the rule. Great fun though!
I’m curious about the purpose of that little window at the bottom of the door. I may be missing something completely obvious to someone more familiar with industrial equipment, and of course it obviously serves an important purpose otherwise it wouldn’t be there, but can someone describe a situation that might necessitate its presence?
I assume that’s to improve visibility down into that corner, for close maneuvering. Not uncommon on many cabover/cab-forward trucks.
dman is right; when looking through that lower window, the driver can see what’s going on in that corner and directly next to the carrier. Without it, there would be a blind spot.
That video is excellent!
Many cars in action that were already old/aging in the mid-eighties, not to mention the black Scania and its semi-trailer.
The budgets aren’t as high here as in Hollywood, which speaks for itself. But the stunt worked out well. The movie was a massive success in the low lands.
Interested to hear more about Spijkstaal, and see more 80s CCs in their habitat.