The Bedford Utilabrake, Mandalay, 2009

This is the seventh part of our 2009 Burmese Odyssey. To read more about our 2009 bash which includes many non-steam items, please see Rob and Yuehong in the Golden Land 2009.

Once upon a time, Burma was a haven for really old vehicles, these days almost everything on the road is still second hand but of no great age and mainly from Japan. However, while in Mandalay, I spent a few minutes idly examining an old Bedford vehicle parked outside a motor parts recycler. I am no expert in these things but it is obviously at least 40 and maybe 50 years old, the gear lever on the floor as opposed to the steering column puts it at the younger end of the scale in my book. If you are such an expert, get in touch and tell me all about it so I can add it to these pictures. 

I am giving the text on the plate here so it will show up in the search engines:

"Utilabrake, all purpose conversion, designed and built by Martin Walter Ltd, Folkestone, Tel 51844, Registered No. U TX79738"

Thanks to Nick Bryant for pointing me at this page on the web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_CA, from which it seems it is a model built between 1964 and 1969. There are lots of references to the "Utilabrake" on the search engines...

It took me a while to work out why I found the vehicle so fascinating. I have a recollection that my first ever driving lesson (from my grandfather) took place in a similar vehicle, a Bedford Dormobile. Unfortunately he omitted to tell me that engaging first gear would make it move, I simply assumed (like a steam loco) that you had to press the accelerator to get going and not surprisingly we all ended up in a large hedge. Fortunately, since we were in his ample drive way there had been no risk of me damaging anything more significant...