This Bedford's 1980 facelift made engine work dramatically easier — the whole front panel came off with just 8 bolts, letting mechanics pull the engine forward instead of dropping it out from underneath.
Lead trim: CF 1.8 L Slant Four (1,759 cc) · up to 61 hp
Bedford CF / CF1CF1 · 1969–1984
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Nobody in Burbles has spotted a Bedford CF / CF1 yet. See one on the street, point the app at it, and the first card is yours — with your @handle permanently credited on this page.
FactThis Bedford's 1980 facelift made engine work dramatically easier — the whole front panel came off with just 8 bolts, letting mechanics pull the engine forward instead of dropping it out from underneath.
The Bedford CF is a range of full-size panel vans made by Bedford, Vauxhall's commercial-vehicle division, introduced in November 1969 to replace the 17-year-old CA and sized to compete directly with the Ford Transit, which had entered production four years earlier; in some markets it was sold through Opel dealers as the Opel Bedford Blitz from 1973. It came as a standard panel van, a special van body (a self-contained cab on a general-purpose chassis for custom bodies) and the Dormobile caravanette, with a hinged side door optional. Petrol power was the Vauxhall Slant Four introduced for the FD Victor in 1967: 1.6 L (1,598 cc) and 2.0 L (1,975 cc), rising in 1972 to 1.8 L (1,759 cc) and 2.3 L (2,279 cc). A four-cylinder 1.8 L (1,760 cc) Perkins diesel cost an extra £130 in 1969 and a larger 2.5 L (2,523 cc) version served heavier versions, rated at 50 and 61 PS (49 and 60 hp) DIN; in 1976 a 2.1 L (2,064 cc) overhead-camshaft Opel diesel replaced the Perkins units, and the 1980 facelift brought the 2.3 L (2,260 cc) Opel 23D diesel with 61 hp (export Blitz models got a 2.0 L 60 PS diesel). In Australasia the CF could be had with 2,850 cc and 3,310 cc Holden sixes. The suspension was double-wishbone with coil springs at the front and a live axle on long single-leaf springs at the rear, with several manual gearboxes, a GM three-speed automatic and optional Laycock overdrive. Wheelbases ran from 106 to 140 in.
Collectors Spotted in the Bedford CF Lineage
No member has published a public street spot of the Bedford CF yet — the First · Worldwide stamp is wide open.
Trims & Figures
8 published trims in the catalogue. A blank is a figure not recorded, not zero.
| Trim | Years | Engine | Power | Torque | 0–60 | Drive | Gearbox | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CF 1.6 L Slant Four (1,598 cc) | 1969–1972 | 1.6 L Inline-4 | — | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| CF 1.8 L Slant Four (1,759 cc) | 1972–1984 | 1.8 L Inline-4 | — | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| CF 2.0 L Slant Four (1,975 cc) | 1969–1972 | 2.0 L Inline-4 | — | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| CF 2.3 L Slant Four (2,279 cc) | 1972–1984 | 2.3 L Inline-4 | — | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| CF Opel 2.1 L OHC diesel (2,064 cc) | 1976–1980 | 2.1 L | — | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| CF Opel 2.3 L 23D diesel (2,260 cc, 61 hp) | 1980–1984 | 2.3 L | 61 hp | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| CF Perkins 1.8 L diesel (1,760 cc, 50 PS) | 1969–1976 | 1.8 L Inline-4 | 49 hp | — | — | RWD | — | — |
| CF Perkins 2.5 L diesel (2,523 cc, 61 PS) | 1969–1976 | 2.5 L Inline-4 | 60 hp | — | — | RWD | — | — |
Owning one
We don’t estimate running costs for a car like this. What it costs depends on its condition, its specialist and how it is driven, and an average would mislead.
Owners’ builds
Nobody has claimed one yet.
Photographs
The CF2 was Bedford’s last word — when the final vans sold in 1987, it closed out the company’s run of vehicles designed entirely in-house.
Royal Mail ran 40 of these as an energy-saving trial in the 1980s — a Bedford van line that Lucas and Chloride billed at the time as the world's first mass-produced electric van in its class.
This Bedford's 1980 facelift made engine work dramatically easier — the whole front panel came off with just 8 bolts, letting mechanics pull the engine forward instead of dropping it out from underneath.
Rivals
Same body, same money, other badges — tap any card to flip.
Chevy pitched the Astro as the anti-minivan, telling buyers life was too big for one, while it rode on a rear-wheel-drive truck frame.
The IIHS rated the Astro Poor in a 1996 crash test, yet 2001–2004 Astros later had the lowest driver death rate of any US passenger vehicle.
The boxy, unglamorous Astro quietly posted one of the best real-world safety records in America: IIHS found 2001-2004 models had the fewest driver deaths per million vehicles of any passenger vehicle on US roads.
The third-generation Tourneo Connect, released in Europe in October 2021, is a rebadged fourth-generation Volkswagen Caddy, assembled by Volkswagen in Poland.
Ford beat the 25% "chicken tax" by importing the Transit Connect as a passenger van — rear windows and seats included, then stripped out and recycled once it landed in the US.
Ford spent years in federal court over the second-gen Transit Connect: in June 2019 the US won its appeal, and judges ruled the van was cargo-only — ending Ford's workaround for the 'chicken tax.'
GM sold a rebadged Nissan NV200 as the Chevy City Express for four years, then killed it in 2018, citing weak sales and the fact that its parts weren't even compatible with GM's own parts catalog.
Its name is a pun: "S-Cargo" means "Small Cargo" but sounds just like escargot — French for snail, the shape the whole van was built to resemble.