Back in the early 80’s I did a fair bit of agency driving for companies in Nottingham who ran D-series; Palmer & Harvey, Randalls (plumbers merchants), Fords (discount stores) and Bampton Packaging were the main ones.
Most were D710’s, fairly new then and not a bad bit of kit by the standards of the day. No power steering of course but the wheel was the size of a dustbin lid and the steering pretty low-geared; they rarely ran top weight so steering was not a problem and I thought they handled better than the Cargo. Randalls trucks were very low-geared, neither would go above 55 flat out (before limiters of course) but Bamptons flat-bed was a cracker, would sit at 70 all day. Worst bit of the D-series was the gearshift, like stirring a pudding and the lever was all over the shop. Huge gap between third and fourth too which made long hills a bind.
The very small 4-cylinder models were a different animal; asthmatic, under-powered, rattly and quite unpleasant. Brakes on either weren’t up to much but then again neither was the TK Bedford, its main rival.
As has been said above, they were actually a better truck in many respects than the first Cargo’s, especially the little ‘uns. I also drove a variety of the bigger D-series for William Wests whilst working for Bill Kelly, most on Boots’ shop-fitting contract out of Eastwood, where I lived then. These were older trucks and not half as nice, and if I got one of the Cargos with the bigger engine and range-change box the newer trucks won hands down.
One useful extra I did like on the D-series was the foot-operated “flick wipe”, the screenwash was a rubber bulb with a metal ring round it fitted by the driver’s left foot, the ring operating the wipers whilst it was held down. Since even 2-speed wipers were a bit of a luxury then it was a welcome change from fiddling around on the dashboard like you did with other trucks.