One For Classic Car Fans.....
- Thread starter Alex H
- Start date
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Smokin Joe
Squire
- Location
- Bare headed cyclist, Smoker
I got a lift home from a nightclub in the back of one of those once. I'm 6'1" so you can imagine the struggle getting in and out.
midlife
Guru
We had one of them as a kid, not seen one for years! Ours was black. Thanks for the pic.
Profpointy
Legendary Member
It's nice to see the old commercial vehicles as so few would have survived as they would have been driven into the ground till unviable; maybe the odd one or two kept in the yards of family firm haulage companies. Unfeasible for the ordinary enthusiast to keep at home, and keep them legal to drive. The do look lovely when signwritten like that
Richard A Thackeray
Legendary Member
When I worked for photographic company in Leeds, we had a few of the 'Combi' models
(ie; an estate, but with steel-panelled sides & no rear seats)
I remember going to collect a new one from the local garage, it was a 'G' plated diesel, with about 10 miles showing!!
Jenkins
Legendary Member
- Location
- Felixstowe
Today's random pick from Brands Hatch...
I remember those. This one is an estate with the glass covered though. I didn't look but I'd be pretty certain you'd find the seats have been removed and the car was declared as a commercial. It was a common thing for people to do to that sort of car back then. Paint the windows, remove the rear seats, get it classified as a van and pay a reduced amount of "road" tax and come home and put the seats back in.
Those sorts of "van" conversions were very common in '80s and' 90s. You sometimes came across very posh vans like top of the range Merc or Volvo estates!
Not many of those still on the road
Ian H
Ancient randonneur
An acquaintance had a similar one and a newer Cresta (the 60s Americana-style one). Both looked immaculate. One day someone drove into the front wing of the Cresta, crumpling it and revealing a mess of Isopon and zinc mesh.
Profpointy
Legendary Member
The specific tax fiddle was that you could have a van as a company car and the taxable benefit was a flat rate of £500 a year - which was perhaps fair enough for a transit or astramax, but there was also a market for van-ized Discoveries for one-man-band companies giving themselves £30k discos out of pre tax income. The big 4x4 luxury crew cab pick ups had the same motivation
I think that in Ireland it was motivated by road tax more than anything else. Pre 2008 a 2.5L Discovery or Merc Estate would cost something like €1400 per year for road tax as it was based on engine capacity whereas if you got it classified as a commercial it was about €320. Technically it is illegal to use a commercially taxed vehicle for non work purposes but it has never been enforced.
Also going back a bit further, buying a new van attracted less tax and if you had a business you could claim the VAT back. When I was young, small car derived commercials like Fiestas, 205s, Unos, Starlets, Corsas were everywhere as people just put back seats in them and used them as cars. There were even strange things like Yugo 45 vans. Seat belt rules and more stringent regulations put an end to carrying passengers in vans.
Sorry, but that’s horrible.
