The Syd Abram advert brought back many memories & can trace its DNA way back to 1952.
In 1952 my dad saw an advert in Commercial Motor for a new Bedford SB(Petrol Passenger chassis) for sale. It was Blakes the Bedford dealership who had it. Although the cab design & bodywork left a lot to be desired he bought it as it was so large (The max overall length of Buses & Cvs had just been increased to 27ft 6in) and offered a lot bigger van that our Bedford OBs which were our biggest vans at the time
When NUP was put on the road it was probably the biggest van in County Durham & gave us an advantage on large removals where others needed 2 vans (three for Pickfords). CDJ & HTH soon followed with CDJ having a body by Mardens Of Warrington which was the start of a business relationship with them where we operated well over 100 van bodies built by them In fact 40% of all vehicles 1919-1986 had Marsden bodies. Marsdens built vans for us on Bedford, seddon, Dodge, Commer, Morris, BMC, Leyland & Ford.
In about 1959 Hills who were then Bedford Main Agents in Manchester had a weekly advert were they offered Bedford SB Marsden Pantechnicons with Quick delivery. Although we never bought off Hills & buying Chassis from Adams & Gibbon our local Bedford agents and dealing directly with Marsden to build bodies, they sold quite a few.
Then Hills stopped advertising but Abrahams had a weekly advert in Commercial Motor but with Bedford SBs with bodies by Bowyer Bros Congleton who eventually changed their name to Boalloy & made fame with the Tautliner curtainsiders.
As a teenager visiting Marsdens which still was run by Old Mr Marsden his son Ken who was with his younger brother Geoff working under their father told my dad of their dealings with Syd Abram. Marsdens had been approached by Abram to supply 100 vans per year 2 a week but at a cut price. At the time Marsdens on full capacity could only build 3 vans a week & so they would not have been able to supply all their smaller customers but also to achieve Abrams price they would have needed to cut quality. They turned down the order
Abrams went to Bowyer Bros and for some time advertised Bedford SBs with Bowyer bodies.
When plating & testing came along even with modifications we could only get the SBs to 9.5 ton GVW & with diesel tanks full etc they weighed over 4.5 ton unladen So the answer was Bedford KF chassis scuttles at 11.15GVW. Because of Marsdens slow delivery VPT828F our last SB arrived when we found out their days were numbered & our next Bedford built by Marsdens BUP312F was on the Bedford KF chassis. BUP cost us £2,800
About the same time Abrams switched to using the KF chassis scuttles and the advert shown shows one of their first. In G Reg we had 6 vans from Marsdens and we got two G reg Abram Bedfords with Bowyer Bros bodies., because slow delivery from Marsden (Chassis could stand in Longshaw Street warrington for 3 to 4 months before they even started building)
The first van in the line up in the photo was our BUP312F then aged 17 years old and still running on average at 1000 miles per week with the body in very good condition. Marsdens had offered full Fibreglass bodies since 1965 where as Bowyer Bros had managed to build front cab & roof in fibreglass but not for side panels. Our two G reg Abram Bedfords only lasted about 8 years with us before we sold them. Both had major cracks in the cabs (Through vibration) & in one case a windscreen had become detached & almost fallen out & water was coming into the bodies through where the roofs joined the body sides. Much of that was explained in the price. Presumably £1620 was for 7.5 ton Bedfords & I’m not sure what the KFs cost but even after Abrams had added on their profit margins they were considerably cheaper than we were buying from Marsden, but as the 1986 photo shows every penny we spent with Marsden was worth the money.
That’s not saying Bowyer Bros could build better quality. In 1971 Seddon introduced their Pennine Pantechnoicon at 13 ton GVW built confusingly on their Pennine Passenger Chassis by their own Company Pennine coachworks and made these available at all Seddon Agents. As Seddon found they needed the space occupied in this production for chassis building Bowyer Bros bought the glass fibre moulds and produced the Seddon Pennine Pantechnicon under licence for Seddon. They also adopted the front to Bedford & Ford We had about 5 but none had the lifespan of our Bedford Marsdens.
I wonder if anyone from the Manchester area know of the links from Bedford agents Blakes to Hills to Syd Abram were there buyouts or were the three working in competition or was it just a clever salesman that passed from one dealership to another taking his idea of off the peg Bedford Pantechnicons & customer base with him
