We started this Van Week with GM, we shall also end it on GM – just a different tentacle of the kraken, if you will. Bedford, for those who didn’t revise their Encyclopedia of GM Marques recently, was the commercial / truck branch of Vauxhall, and thus a GM subsidiary since its creation in 1931. So we might have to look into that a bit, but also into the famous Dormobile conversions.
This Bedford CA motorhome discovered during the summer will definitely count as one of my top five finds of the year. Italian exotica, American muscle and JDM obscurities are pretty much par for the course, but I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d find a Dormobile. Apparently, there are only two in the country.
And there used to be many in the UK, but I understand numbers had dwindled considerably over the decades. Is the campervan lifestyle going out of fashion, or is this merely the effect of 50-plus years of servitude?
Bedford-branded products came in all shapes and sizes, from the small Vauxhall Viva-derived pickups to 7-ton lorries and large buses. Prior to the marque’s retirement circa 1990, GM played their usual badge-engineering games, selling Isuzu- or Opel-designed vehicles, but back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Bedford products were still all locally-designed. And although this is nominally a 1971 vehicle, it is obviously a much older design.
The Bedford CA was launched in 1952. It featured a traditional RWD layout, with a new longitudinally-mounted short stroke 1.5 litre OHV engine mated to a 3-speed manual – identical to the drivetrain used on the Vauxhall Wyvern. The CA came in two wheelbases and was soon in high demand, both for commercial haulage and for private van/RV conversions.
Enter Martin Walter, a Kent-based coachbuilder founded back in the 1770s. Switching to car bodies in the 1900s, the firm gained a reputation for fine craftsmanship. By the late ‘20s / early ‘30s, they were dressing highfalutin Minerva (top left), Daimler Double-Six (top right) and Rolls-Royce 20/25 (middle left) chassis, but also had a line in more affordable cabriolets, as exemplified here with this Hillman (middle right). After 1945, the firm focused more on commercial bodies, such as this 1963 Ford Thames bus (bottom right), or estate variants (e.g. this 1956 Vauxhall Velox, bottom left). But Martin Walter’s true specialty became motorhome conversions, marketed under the Dormobile brand from 1955 onwards.
Dormobile conversions quickly became the gold standard in Britain. They were offered on the most common vans (of which Bedford CA were a substantial share), but Martin Walter had no compunction about adapting their designs to more unconventional vehicles, such as the Land-Rover.
But the bread-and-butter for Dormobile was the standard van conversions, featuring this patented fold-out roof. This 1962 brochure shows the Bedford CA after its first facelift, which did away with the split windshield, but also with fins (tacked on by Martin Walter) that would soon be eliminated.
A new grille and a wraparound windshield were added for MY 1964. Our feature van, being a Romany, also has the pop-up roof, which increases headroom to over 7 feet and enables the fitment of a bunk bed.
And of course, there is everything you might need back there to cook, clean and store for a small army (of about four).
The oven, fridge and most electric fitments were all freshly installed. It’s not the original gear, but then fifty-year-old British-made kitchenettes are not something you necessarily want to grapple with, especially overseas and in a country that doesn’t use the same voltage.
Here’s the business end of the van. This being a very late model CA, it has the bigger 1.6 litre 4-cyl. from the Vauxhall Victor, good for 66hp and mated here to the optional (and desirable) 4-speed manual. A Perkins Diesel was also available as an option.
The CA was replaced by the far more contemporary-looking CF in Bedford’s range by late 1969. However, a number of CA vans still ended up at the Dormobile works in Folkestone to be “Romanyfied” for a few years after the switchover. This may have been due to the CF’s higher price, though plenty of those were given the Dormobile treatment as well.
Some sources say about a quarter of all Bedford CA production went through some sort of Dormobile conversion between 1955 to around 1972. Add the other conversions — Commer, Ford Thames, Morris, Austin, VW, Renault, Fiat and smaller Bedfords — and I would think Martin Walter were doing quite well, in those years.
Campervan culture was thriving in the UK in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and it remains a popular way to go on holiday to this very day, but rival companies (and the van-makers themselves, sometimes) started to undercut Martin Walter’s business in the ‘80s. It took a long time, but eventually the wheels came off the Dormobile and the historic Folkestone works were closed down in 1994. Someone bought the leftover stocks and intellectual property, so Dormobile roofs were back in production by 1997, but the coachbuilding tradition associated with Martin Walter is gone forever.
It might not be entirely coincidental that Bedford ceased to exist a few years prior to the end of Dormobile. I guess the name now belongs to Stellantis, along with an impressive collection of other dead marques, from Panhard to Humber and from Autobianchi to DeSoto. Bedford (and Vauxhall) might well have the conglomerate’s coolest emblem, though.
The Bedford CA was to Dormobile what the VW Transporter was to Westfalia – though the German campervan lasted quite a bit longer than its English counterpart. I will confess that I’ve never spent time in a campervan myself – it just wasn’t something we did as a family. But if it had been as lovely a vehicle as this, I’d be game for sure. I pick the bottom bunk.
Related posts:
Curbside Capsule: Bedford CA Panel Van – CA for Canada, by DougD
CC Outtake: 1966 Bedford CA Ice Cream Van – The Sun Always Shines in England, by Roger Carr
The Dormobile’s original kitchenette likely featured a two ring and grill bottle gas stove for cooking, probably nothing electrical and a coolbox rather than a fridge. I wouldn’t want to trust 50+ year old gas in a small space, but it’s a pity the new units don’t look more in keeping with the originals which would surely have been plywood or wood grain melamine. (When I had camper vans I always preferred to cook outside, too many flammable things in a small space.)
CA vans were very popular and Martin Walter converted them into mini and crew busses – the Utilecon as mentioned in the ad- as well, some of which had a bench down either side made from wooden slats!
There did camper and estate car conversions of the HA (Viva) as well.
What a great find.
BTW the G suffix on the English number plate means it was first registered between 1st August 1968 and 31st July 1969.
When I was growing up Dormobile was to motor caravans what Hoover was to vacuum cleaners and Bedfords were the most common. Martin Walter continued to use the Dormobile name on ambulances long after they stopped making campers. Again many were Bedfords (CF/CF2 by then).
What a charming little camper van! And you even found it at a place and time where you got to see it in both its folded and unfolded form. I presume one of the bunks is in the fold-up roof piece?
I am familiar with the Dormobile name but always assumed it was a company, not a brand of the manufacturer (Martin Walter). So I assume it’s derived from the French verb “dormer”, to sleep? For a camping vehicle you sleep in.
My first Matchbox car was the Bedford milk truck. I was only 3-1/2 but I remember getting it when we lived in England in 1960.
Fab find! Always had a major passion for these. I knew of them, but then sometime in the ’70s I ran across one that had been imported. I have had a huge thing about camper vans since forever (and no, the Niedermeyers did not do anything remotely like that), the freedom to just go wherever one wanted to and be self contained is immensely compelling. That Dormobile I saw really cemented my passion for them, and not long after I got my first van (’68 Dodge) and converted into a crude camper.
Terrific find and write up – I’ve never heard of Dormobile, so this is a new one for me. Looks like a great design. I love seeing the interior shots here. I hope the owners get to enjoy it camping too.
Spent a lot of the summer off 78 in a CF Dormobile : a good way to shelter from Scottish rain and with the 2.3 litre 4pot it got a move on. The CA was from a more leisurely age and we looked down on those but you have to admire running one in Tokyo although it may be bigger than some people’s flats…
Actually, Dormobile became something of a proprietary eponym in the UK for a while – as did Hoover for vacuum cleaners…yet I’d completely forgotten about these.
Great find!
Always loved the sheer style of the CA Bedfords, though it’s tempered within by some forgotten remembrance of them being being very junky and rusty things by my childhood time of the ’70’s. That is, I immediately imagine rough-looking trades or dodgy ice-cream sellers, an image further ruffled by the background thought (real or not) that folks knew them to be under-powered, though with three junky-column-shift speeds and not enough litres, they must actually have been. Perhaps we used to get stuck behind them too often and that’s distorted my view?
All that said, this Mobile of Doors version is most desirable, as an art piece at minimum, and possibly even an actual camper for the bendable and brave of 2024.
Dormobile also did a lot of VWs, Matchbox made a “bay window” with a working roof in the 70s.
The lack of survivors is mostly down to rust, although I would guess Dormobiles make up a large proportion of surviving CA vans since they were less heavily used and often better maintained.
Bedford also supplied the chassis for Britain’s smallest motorhomes. Romahome built fiberglass Class C motorhomes on Bedford Rascal chassis, which were rebadged Suzuki Carry Kei trucks with a biggere engine.