Next development was in mid-1960's with the Super Hippo "Power Plus" version. Power steering (Hooray), air assist clutch, the old 680 motor up-rated to 200 hp. An Albion 6 speed transmission with 6^th being an overdrive plus a built-in "under-drive" splitter working on the counter-shaft; the catch with this gear arrangement was that the splitter could not work on fifth gear as that was "direct drive" - there was absolutely nothing you could do about the wide 4^th to 5^th gap. It was a case, if heavy loaded on just the wrong grade, of "rowing" it along with the gear lever - grab 5^th and then slowly lose it, down to 4^th till she screams and up to 5^th you go again, and so on - frustration personified. But just think what you could have done if that counter-shaft splitter had been an overdrive; it would not only fill the 4^th to 5^th gap, but give you a double overdrive on top of 6^th - dream on! The down-side? Loss of the deep reduction 1^st gear - I didn't weep at the thought!

Also Leyland installed new design hub-reduction rear axles which were great as singles as in the "Beaver" but gave no end of hassles as double drives if you did much dirt road work. The inter axle prop shaft was at quite an angle up to a through-drive shaft in the front diff housing. This meant that as the axles bump up and down on bad roads the prop shaft, no matter how well greased, tends to give the rear bearing of the through-shaft a pounding with disastrous results - a real "Achilles Heel" in a potentially good truck. We did develop some modifications that alleviated the problem slightly. I even converted one Hippo from 6 x 4 to 6 x 2 for a client - an exercise I vowed never to do again as the complexities just seemed to grow as the job progressed!

Sadly, the new Hippo's potential was never realized and it was about this time that Leyland started to lose the plot, to be overtaken in Africa and elsewhere by the likes of Mercedes Benz, M.A.N. etc - not to mention the Americans.

My acquisition of her was sheer luck. When finally auctioned off by the council in the late 1960's she was knocked down to an old guy who operated a small quarry. He wanted it to haul rock from the face up to his primary crusher. Fortunately the "driver" very soon (before too much other damage was done) snaggled up the transmission (stuck in gear, with the shift lever jumped out of the selector) and no-one knew how to fix it - and I never said a word; so it lay at the side of the track with a load of rock on board.

That afternoon I press-ganged a friend into helping and went back with a truck, oxy-acetylene, tow-pole etc. We cut all the "U" bolts holding the load body which we then chained to a tree and pulled the chassis out from under. With my friend standing on the clutch and steering I towed it home. A few minutes jiggling in the selectors had the shift problem solved, gallon of diesel in the Autovac, about 3 or 4 yard tow down the front lawn and she was running!

There followed a leisurely 3 or 4 year strip down and re-build which required very little in the way of replacement parts - incredibly Leyland were still using identical steering tie-rod ends, road-spring pins and bushes and similar small items. The only item that we couldn't source was a replacement for a piston with a cracked skirt. I probably could have had one made at vast cost, but elected to weld and re-machine. Its still going fine as far as I can tell.

When my wife and I decided to move down to Botswana from Zambia I acquired a large van body from a friend which I adapted to fit the QM. Quite a job as the chassis rails are quite a bit wider apart than modern trucks and the body itself was much too long for the chassis. I turned it into what is known in U.K. as a "Luton" body, with the lower front cut back and the top of the body extending forward over the cab.

The trip to Botswana was going to be about 1000 miles and, with a top speed around 35 mph, a daunting prospect. I have found the old Leyland two-speed auxiliary transmission can be an absolute boon in the right circumstances, so with all our furniture and stuff due to be loaded on I installed one I had spare, but put it in "back to front" so it worked as both a splitter and overdrive for a cruising speed about 45 mph - only a pleasure!