Carl Williams:
Bedford 'O ’ Model. We had 6 'O 'models in our fleet. This one an OB (Passenger chassis) which stupidly my dad & grandfather had fitted with a standard cab instead have spending the extra and having an integral pantechnicon built. Registered in 1948 JUP was also in error painted the wrong colour by the body builders (Youngs Ford dealers at their Sunderland body shop) Our orriginal colours were stone & brown but in 1935 my dad then 14 got them changed to cream & brown, & my Grandfather who was colour blind got it painted Stone & brown in errorThe engine side cover is removed as they appear to be dipping the oil & checking the battery which was located under the passenger seat I seem to remember
Orriginally JUP was built with a straight through floor which proved high at the rear, Ramps hadn’t been thought of those days so in about 1952 it had a major refit with the body dropped & whee boxes put in. Dad wanted a drop well but this was going to be too expensive. The luton which was dropping due to Young’s poor body building was re enforced and it was re painted cream & brown. It looked a nice van then I remember. Our last Bedford again an OB (LPT 1950 reg) was replaced by a SB in 1961
The Bedford ‘OB’ was the first passenger chassis that became very popular for pantechnicon bodies because of the chassis length & led the way for the massively popular SB
Bedford supplied the OB as a chassis/scuttle together with Chrome wheel discs & the chrome overiders that are fixed (on this photo) to the front bumper. These were designed to make coaches look better (The OB chassis scuttle had been designed for coach use) I remember the overiders were hung in our stores area at Marmaduke Street when I was young & till we moved out when they went with so many old Bedford parts into a skip.They were taken off in its very early life to make it like the other commercial chassis O models we ran. My family did not like things ‘Tarted up’