About Bedford Garage

The history of Bedford goes back to 1857. With his company ‘Alexander Wilson & Co.’ the Scottish engineer Wilson built steaming-engines for ships. At the end of the 19^th Century Wilson left his company and the name was changed into ‘Vauxhall Iron Works Company ltd’. This company experimented with petrol engines and in 1903 the first car appeared with the name ‘Vauxhall’. In 1925 the American company ‘General Motors (GM)’ took over the company. GM imported Chevrolet trucks to England but the high import taxes forced GM to produce them in England. Then, due to the worldwide recession in the thirties, GM decided to develop an English truck: Bedford. In 1937 GM sold 30.000 trucks and mini-busses. During World War II Bedford produced a substantial amount of trucks for the British Army. After the war, trucks were converted into emergency busses for public transport. The production of several types of Bedford restarted as well as the production of new types. Due to a new recession in the late seventies and the growing import from the East, GM decided to close down the factories. The new factory in Dunstable was sold to AWD, who then delivered them to the British Ministry of Defense. After the Ministry’s decision to change to another supplier, AWD was forced to close down – after 55 years – the last Bedford factory in 1986.