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Bedford Commercials of the 1930s: Nostalgia Road

Category: Transport

By the year 1939, Vauxhall Motors had established its range of Bedford commercial vehicles, developing a range of product that firmly had their origins with British-built Chevrolet models of American design.

Moving onwards from a 2-ton truck, the Bedford range had capacities from 5/6-cwt up to an 8-ton tractor unit by the time that war was declared with Germany in September 1939. The untimely outbreak of hostilities saw Vauxhall and Bedford shift their production capacity towards military needs, and as a result only a handful of cars would be built at Luton before peace was resumed in 1945.

The war years will be covered in a future book, but have you ever stopped to think what might have happened had the war not broken out? This new book by Robert Berry poses just that question, and is largely based on a publicity booklet that Bedford had produced for its 1939-1940 sales campaign.

The booklet was never put into print, but instead languished in a cupboard at the Dunstable works until closure. Rescued from the waste skip by a member of the 1939 design team, the booklet has now been faithfully recreated and is presented in the way in which it would have been seen in 1939. After a brief introduction to both Chevrolet and Bedford, it presents unique images of 65 years ago and shows how popular Bedfords had become in the 1930s!

 ©2008 Colourpoint Books