MILITARY VEHICLE CONSERVATION GROUP.

Contributed by Trevor Stubberfield (52A)

AWD – Bedford Tank Transporter.

This should be in our now defunct ‘Where are they now?’ section. Having worked for many years for Bedford Trucks in Dunstable, I transferred to the General Motors Engineering Division in Luton when G.M. sold off the Bedford manufacturing facility in 1987. Sometime later I was somewhat surprised to be seconded back to AWD who had taken over Bedford. Bedford had never been very successful in the heavy trucks field so to be asked to help with the build of a Tank Transporter sized vehicle seemed to be an

’Alice in Wonderland’ venture, but it paid the bills for a while.

Apart from the first photo, the illustrations were in a reprint by AWD of the Supertruck Magazine in 1988.

Almost ready for the off, pictured below in the workshop at Dunstable.

Photo Copyright © Trevor Stubberfield.

The following photos were taken during the evaluation presentation on Salisbury Plain.

Picture above, left to right, are the Diamond T, Thorneycroft Antar, Scammell Crusader and the Bedford TM based derivative presented by AWD Bedford. AWD could only use the Bedford name on vehicles built for military purposes.

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Demobbed.

The question, ‘where is it now?’ had been in the back of my mind for many years. The most likely outcome was that it finished up in several very large skips for recycling, until…………

Photo Copyrights © Auto Recovery Services Ltd.

Suitably modified, it is now in the hands of Auto Recovery Services Ltd. of Billingham in Cleveland. As there was only one unit ever produced at Dunstable, this must be the sole AWD 6x6 TM based, Heavy Recovery Vehicle in service anywhere. There was a happy ending to Alice in Wonderland after all.

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Published: 15th April 2015