Hello Saviem.With respect,you have rather “jumped the gun” at least a bit regarding some of your comments on my comments.In other words,it would have been better for you to have waited until I had posted PART SIX,which is below,and covers at least some of the same reasons that you have mentioned for the demise of the Bedford marque 
.Part’s 5 and 6 were completed some days since,and I finished Part 7 a few hours since,and in fact I was going post the whole lot as Part 5,but it would have been a bit unwieldy at least,so I’ve split the final part in to three parts.
Nevertheless,you have written an interesting and informative post,and you have obviously had quite a colourful and interesting career in the commercial vehicle industry as an “all-rounder”,ie. lorry driver,lorry operater,lorry salesman,an employee of at least one commercial vehicle manufacturer,and so on,including the fact that you were even a friend of the great late Pat Kennett…you will have to tell us all more,please .
Bedford Lorries,Motorcoaches,Buses and Vans.TruckNetUK.
PART SIX,PAGE 7.
Another Swan Song.
4.Nearly everything was going wrong for Bedford,including their motorcoach sales:From the 1930s
right up to the late 1970s Bedford were the market leaders in the motorcoach market,one in
every three motorcoaches was a Bedford and outsold Ford,AEC,Leyland,Bristol,etc,in the 1970s.
True,both Bedford and Ford motorcoaches were in the mediumweight catergory and therefore were
cheaper than the heavyweight AEC’s,Leyland’s,Volvo’s,Bova’s,etc.
BUT alas! 
Due to a number of reasons - including British Leyland’s downright criminal elimination
of the AEC Reliance Motorcoach model in 1979 
- imported heavyweight motorcoaches started to
dominate the United Kingdom’s motorcoach market.This severely damaged Bedford’s motorcoach
sales:They dived from almost 1000 per year to around 200 by 1983.The market had changed from
mainly middleweight to mainly heavyweight motorcoaches.
To try and win back sales,Bedford introduced another Swan Song:This time,in 1984,it was the
Venturer YNV Motorcoach Chassis model - but again,it was too late…and to think:From 1945
to 1950 Bedford produced nearly 13000 OB passenger vehicle chassis! …mainly motorcoaches!
NOTE:The same problems affected Ford motorcoach and bus sales,and they too pulled out of the
market.In fact,Ford’s UK and European commercial vehicle sales as a whole were suffering,so it’s
British and European lorry operations merged with IVECO in 1986.
A FURTHER NOTE:With the withdrawal of both Bedford and Ford from the motorcoach market,Dennis
of Guildford,already re-established as a bus builder,entered the motorcoach market with it’s
newly designed Javelin Motorcoach model in 1988 
.
Bedford Venturer YNV/Duple 320 Motorcoach D776 OUA Emblings of Guyhirn
flickr.com/photos/24286563@N07/2576867441/
Bedford Venturer YNV/Jonchkeere Jubilee Motorcoach B499 CBD/B465 YUR
Roeselare Motorcoach and Bus Dealer Demonstration Vehicle.
flickr.com/photos/26058810@N02/6590949525
Bedford Venturer YNV/Plaxton Paramount 3200 Motorcoach B500 YUR
Ex- Bedford Demonstrator at the Imperial War Museum,Duxford.
flickr.com/photos/51738247@N03/7403875912/
The General Motors - British Government - Leyland - Land-Rover - DAF - PACCAR - Bedford Debacle.
5.To relieve British Taxpayers from paying to prop up what was left of British Leyland (now
in 1986 a shadow of it’s former self),the British Government was hell bent in selling off
the state owned British Leyland Ltd,soon to be re-named the Rover Group.
The General Motors Corporation,once the richest,the biggest and most successful corporation
in the world - and America’s flagship business corporation - had been suffering from
mis-management in recent years (and this continued on and off up until at least 2009,the year
of General Motors’ Chapter 11 Bankruptcy) .
This mis-management proved to be in the negative,of course,for Bedford (and other division’s
of General Motors),and in the case of Bedford,the marque suffered from years of under investment
(in the case of the TL) and lack of investment (the TK replacement was dropped in 1974) and found
itself being relegated from being a design and manufacturing centre of commercial vehicles so
that Bedford’s Dunstable factory was gradually becoming an assembly operation .The world wide
economic recession of the 1980s did not help Bedford’s case as well,plus the fact that the likes
of Scania,Mercedes-Benz and Iveco were becoming ever stronger in the British Commercial Vehicle
Market.All of these factors caused Bedford to lose money and sales 
.
In 1986 General Motors made an offer to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government to buy
the lorry,motorcoach and bus manufacturing division of British Leyland Ltd,Leyland Vehicles.
As part of the deal,GMC also wanted to buy Land-Rover.GM management must have realised that they
had mis-managed Bedford to hell and that it was almost certainly a lost cause .So this offer to
buy Leyland Vehicles and Land-Rover was a last ditch effort for General Motors to try to stay
in the United Kingdom Commercial Vehicle Market .
Land-Rover and Range-Rover Enthusiasts started a KEEP LAND-ROVER BRITISH Campaign and,from all
accounts,the Government was incompetent in handling the General Motors offer in regard to
Leyland Vehicles .So General Motors walked away empty handed. I wonder if the Government already
knew that it was going to sell Leyland Vehicles to DAF. PACCAR also wanted to buy Leyland
Vehicles too!
If the General Motors - Leyland Vehicles - Land-Rover - Bedford Deal had gone ahead,what would
the future have been like for these major players? 
Going by General Motors’recent history,the
answer would be "Not good at all! "…British Leyland was not the only corporation to become
a shadow of it’s former self! - and to go bankrupt!
The End of Bedford.Enter AWD.
6.General Motors Corporation stopped making Bedford commercial vehicles in September 1986 ,
retained the Bedford marque name for van production and sold the Bedford Dunstable factory in
1987,including the design and production rights of Bedford lorries,to David J.B.Brown who made
DJB/Artix Dumptrucks (sold to Caterpillar in 1987) and Multidrive Articulated Vehicles.
David J.B.Brown began producing updated Bedfords under the AWD marque name at the Dunstable
factory in 1987.General Motors changed the marque name of the vans from Bedford to Vauxhall in
1988 .
AWD TL Flat-bodied 4x2 Lorry F864 RTF
flickr.com/photos/fryske/5261976876/
AWD TJ2 normal control 4x2 Lorry in chassis cab form,built for export.1988.
truck-photos.net/picture/number3744.asp
AWD TM40 MTM 50 Multidrive 8x6 Tipper-bodied Articulated Lorry powered by a Caterpillar 3406B
Diesel Engine.1990.
commercialmotor.com/big-lorr … bedford-tm
AWD BEDFORD.
7.General Motors allowed AWD to use the Bedford marque name for military vehicles only,civilian
versions were sold under the AWD marque name.
AWD Bedford Military Vehicles Advertisements
flickr.com/photos/67384646@N … 1565021091
flickr.com/photos/67384646@N … 1565021091
The designation of the Bedford MK 4x4 military and civilian model changed from MK - K for
multi-fuel engine - to MJ - J for diesel engine - in 1981. During the late 1980s the British
Ministry of Defence tested three competing military vehicle designs to decide which one would be
the replacement for the Bedford MK/MJ 4x4 Lorry:-
AWD Bedford MJ General Service 4-Ton 4x4 Lorry - updated MJ 10 KH 50
flickr.com/photos/staffs999/ … hotostream
Leyland DAF T244 General Service 4-Ton 4x4 Lorry 04 KL 69
flickr.com/photos/kenjonbro/5583127078/
Volvo Highlander FL6 General Service 4-Ton 4x4 Lorry - it was very similar to this Civvy Street
Volvo FL6 4x4 Lorry P398 HKB,and this actual lorry could have been one of the vehicles that took part in
the MOD trials!
truck-photos.net/picture/number9278.asp
Leyland DAF won the contract in 1989,but AWD Bedford still supplied the MOD with AWD Bedford MJs.
AWD Bedford TT 6x6 Heavy Recovery Vehicle K7 AWD TONKA - Prototype tank transporter,tested by
the British MOD:-
commercialmotor.com/big-lorr … rters-on-1
TONKA was not succesful and became a heavy recovery vehicle with Auto Recovery Services
flickr.com/photos/eastlancsl … 885570264/
ccmv.aecsouthall.co.uk/p91861738 … #h1fe0510e
ccmv.aecsouthall.co.uk/p91861738 … #h10f7ce01
flickr.com/photos/33865953@N05/4352444956/
Has this lorry now been sold ? If so,where is it now? Please. Thanks:-
trstrucks.co.uk/products.php?cat=63
PART SEVEN OF Bedford Lorries,Motorcoaches,Buses and Vans WILL FOLLOW SHORTLY .
VALKYRIE.
,eventually a tow did the trick.The Ki gas was a joke,it was probably fitted to make the driver feel better! Being 12 volt didn’t help either. The next one had the Leyland Comet engine fitted,an entirely different lorry. 24 volt,it started every morning,no probs and pulled like the train 
