Clansman and her original sister vessels, Hebrides and Columba, had been built in 1963-64 at the Hall Russell shipyard in Aberdeen to the order of the Secretary of State for Scotland. They were chatered to David MacBrayne to introduce new car carrying services to the Inner and Outer Hebrides. They bore traditional West Coast names and the MacBrayne livery but, while owned by the Scottish Secretary, they were registered in Leith. Their port of registry was changed to Glasgow when the ownership of the vessels was transferred to Caledonian MacBrayne as part of the State-owned Scottish Transport Group in the 1970s.
In this picture a Linwood-built Hillman Imp car can be seen alongside Clansman, as can a wooden-cabbed quayside crane, also built in Renfrewshire, in its case by the giant engineering company Babcock & Wilcox of Renfrew.
