A Bigger Bedford

Mark Gredzinski looks into the history of the ‘wide cab’ Bedford TM.

Back in 1974, it made sense for Bedford to introduce a flagship heavy tractor to compete with both home-grown and foreign rivals. Alongside the new TM narrow cab rigids and artics, the Bedford TM depicted in these photos sported a considerably bigger cab, which was wider by some 10 inches. The spacious all-steel unit was available in both F-type day and H-type sleeper versions and though the angular styling was unremarkable, it was a clean and attractive design that never really dated throughout its life.

The wide cab TM was designed for up to 44-tonnes application, both as a tractor and also in 4x2 or 6x4 rigid configuration, o en for a drawbar arrangement. Parent company General Motors wanted to push the use of its own in-house Detroit Diesel engines, which on paper made sense. However, promoting an unheralded Bedford into the heavy truck market with a relatively unfamiliar, albeit well developed engine was potentially unwise.

The engines initially included the 8V-71 mechanically supercharged two-stroke Detroit Diesel V8 producing 296bhp. The 71 denoted cubic inches per cylinder. This was settled into the TM 3800 4x2 tractor and the TM 4200 6x4 model. A smaller six-cylinder Detroit Diesel 6-71 producing 216bhp was featured in the TM3250 model for 32-ton operation. By 1978, the TM 3800 was available with a Cummins E290 with Spicer 10-speed gearbox, and the 4200 was fitted much later with a 352bhp E370 ‘big cam’ Cummins option which had plenty of pulling power and outright speed.