Goods Vehicles
Tilling-Stevens also produced goods chassis available with either petrol-electric or conventional gearbox transmissions and built many trucks during World War I. Their cast aluminium radiators were distinctive, with "Tilling-Stevens" cast into the top and either "Petrol-Electric" or "Maidstone" into the bottom tanks.
After the war, they failed to invest in updating their products and acquired Vulcan Trucks of Southport, Lancashire in 1930 to extend their range (and use Vulcan petrol engines). Production stayed at Maidstone.
The unusual electric transmission became less of an advantage as other makers developed their simpler mechanical transmissions to be reliable and easier to drive. Tilling-Stevens specialised in some unusual markets where the transmission could offer a particular advantage, by also using it as a generator. Some early turntable ladder fire engines were produced where arc lamps for lighting and the electric motors to raise the ladder could be powered by it.
In the 1930s the lorries also lost the large cast radiators in favour of first a thinner cast aluminium shell and then a cheaper steel pressed bonnet and a small diamond-shaped "TSM" badge.
Leading up to World War II they specialised in the searchlight trucks for which they are probably still best known today.
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