Bedford Dormobile
Encyclopedia
Bedford Vehicles
Bedford Vehicles, usually shortened to just Bedford, was a subsidiary of Vauxhall Motors, itself the British subsidiary of General Motors , established in 1930; and constructing commercial vehicles. Bedford Vehicles was a leading international truck manufacturer, with substantial export sales of...
Dormobile is a 1960s-era campervan
Campervan
A campervan , sometimes referred to simply as a camper, or a caravanette, is a self-propelled vehicle that provides both transport and sleeping accommodation. The term mainly describes vans that have been fitted out, often with a coachbuilt body for use as accommodation...
(motorcaravan, motorhome) conversion, based on the Bedford CA
Bedford CA
The Bedford CA was a distinctive pug-nosed light commercial vehicle produced between 1952 and 1969 by Vauxhall Motors subsidiary Bedford Vehicles, in Luton, United Kingdom....
van, and subsequently on the Bedford CF
Bedford CF
The Bedford CF was a model of light commercial vehicle produced by Bedford Vehicles for almost twenty years from the late 1960s.In Germany and certain other continental markets, the CF was sold through Opel dealers as the Opel Bedford Blitz from 1973 on....
. It was manufactured in Folkestone
Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, southern England, by Martin Walter.
The first Bedford CA based Dormobile motorhome, complete with a gas stove, a sink and cupboards and seats which converted into beds, appeared in 1957. The elevating roof, hinged on one side and featuring a red and white striped canopy, was quickly evolved in order to make it possible to stand within the vehicle. The campervan idea originated as a compromise negotiated with the UK tax office. Earlier in the 1950s, the manufacturers specialised in converting the Bedford CA
Bedford CA
The Bedford CA was a distinctive pug-nosed light commercial vehicle produced between 1952 and 1969 by Vauxhall Motors subsidiary Bedford Vehicles, in Luton, United Kingdom....
van into a mini-bus, featuring extra side windows and seats. The UK tax authorities asserted that the converted vehicle was effectively a form of estate car
Station wagon
A station wagon is a body style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door , instead of a trunk lid...
, and therefore its retail price should bear passenger car purchase tax, a burden from which buyers of vans were spared. However, the manufacturers negotiated an agreement whereby Dormobile converted vans could be sold without purchase tax, provided they incorporated "built-in life support equipment" such as a cooking device, and facilities for the washing and storage of clothes. These stipulations triggered a move away from minibus conversions to motorhome conversions, which carved out a substantial new life-style market as the ensuing decade saw a substantial increase in disposable incomes in the UK.
The company subsequently converted a number of different van-based vehicles to other uses, including minibuses and ambulances, before collapsing in the mid 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
.
The novelist Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
, who owned one and used it as a home and means of travelling throughout Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
in the late 1960s, described the Bedford Dormobile as "a miracle of British design, although much let down by slipshod British execution — screws missing, bad wood-planing..."