AWD Bedford
The Bedford trucks site was sold to David John Bowes Brown (entrepreneur) in 1987 and the new trucks business was named AWD Trucks.
The AWD TK (a rebadged and modernised version of the Bedford TK / MK range) was also produced and supplied to the British Military.
There remain around 7000 Bedford and AWD vehicles in service with the British military.
The AWD name was used as GM would only allow the use of the Bedford name for military trucks.
David John Bowes Brown was the designer in 1973 of the then DJB D250 Articulated Dump Truck, built in Peterlee, England, by DJB Engineering Ltd.
DJB was renamed Artix in 1985 when the trucks were rebadged as Caterpillar. Artix itself was sold to Caterpillar in 1996.
Due to cheaper competition and the virtual collapse of the UK market in which AWD competed in 1989/90, the company went into receivership in 1992 and was bought by dealer network Marshall of Cambridge. The firm being sold to Cat in 1996.

Bedford AWD TL 4x4 Tanker 1987
Bedford trucks have been made in Dunstable for 40 years, ... It used to be part of ... General Motors, which has owned Vauxhall Cars, manufactured in Luton, since 1925.Bedford Trucks stopped being part of the General Motors group as a result of the collapse of the General Motors-Leyland deal in the mid-1980s.
AWD sale to put Bedford in Cambridge.1992
After selling the design rights to Caterpillar in 1984 he went on to buy Bedford trucks from General Motors in 1987 and renamed the firm AWD (GM retained the Bedford brand name).David Brown also patented the Multidrive concept and marketed it to the military and quarry and mine users as a heavy duty semi on-off highway vehicle.
This particular AWD Limited firm should not be confused with the other British firm of similar initials AWD, more properly known as AWD Engineering Limited that started in 1970 at Dunstable in Bedfordshire. This company AWD of Bedfordshire is owned by David John Brown the founder of DJB . AWD were also the later manufacturers and owned the trade name of the famous AWD-Multiwheeler brand based on 4X4 and 6X6 Bedford T-Series models until they closed in 1992. Soon another firm called MARSHALL-SPV of Cambridge acquired them and resumed production of their new largest allterrain models.
.. in 1987 the Bedford truck section was sold to AWD Ltd, a company owned by David John Bowes Brown. The AWD name was used as GM would only allow the use of the Bedford name for military trucks. The Bedford Vehicles brand was eventually sold to AWD in 1990 and that's when the Midi and Rascal vans were re-badged as Vauxhall. AWD went into receivership in 1992 and was bought by dealer network Marshall of Cambridge.
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