Browned Off

Bedford trucks were, famously, ‘seen everywhere’ – but plans by the ambitious David J B Brown and his company AWD to relaunch the renowned range ended in failure.

- Richard Stainer

As the British subsidiary of General Motors (GM), Bedford had been a remarkably successful producer and exporter of trucks for many years, with UK market share peaking in 1976. But the 1980s provided a harsher trading climate for the firm and truck sales had fallen to about 14,500 in 1984, from 37,000 at the turn of the decade.

With hefty losses mounting, GM sought to dispose of its heavy truck businesses, successfully arranging a joint venture with Volvo White in the United States. But striking a similar deal in Europe proved more difficult and, following unsuccessful talks with MAN, Enasa and Leyland, Bedford announced the end of civilian heavy truck and bus production in September 1986. Bedford did, however, continue to market vans in the UK, produce trucks for export to developing countries, and retained the Ministry of Defence (MoD) business that it was contracted to until 1988.

This shock to the industry was followed by another 14 months later – an entrepreneur, David J B Brown, bought the Bedford truck business at Dunstable for an undisclosed sum in November 1987. Brown – no relation to the tractor manufacturer – was a 62-year-old former haulier and engineer who had risen to prominence as the founder of the company Artix, whose Caterpillar-based articulated dump trucks were sold under the DJB name until Caterpillar acquired the marketing rights in 1985.

Ambitious plans

From the outset, Brown had ambitious aims for his new project and 1100 staff. Initial plans were to maintain the export and military sales then relaunch the TL model on the British market, with European exports to follow; reintroduce the TM model;and then to develop specialist vehicles for the military and export markets.

Perhaps surprisingly, he didn’t start from nothing, as Bedford had still managed to produce 5500 military and export trucks during 1987.