Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Bedford 4x4 is a hook loader that can do some impressive things with its bed. When you learn its history, you'll need to decide if it's a truck you'd want to hook up with or not.
What's long and hard and full of sea men? That's right, yesterday's 2009 custom 6-door Ford F350 diesel. Well, actually not the sea men part, I was just making that up. It seems that the seller of that sea man-free truck wasn't joking when he set his price, but sadly for him, 77% of you thought it was a joke, and it fell in a Crack Pipe loss.
I still liked that Ford a lot, so much so in fact that today I think we should get in bed with another kind of ford, a Bedford. This 1986 Bedford (at least that's the year it's going by) is a cab-over 4x4 with an 8.2-litre 6-cylinder turbo diesel and a trick back-end that will hydraulically extend and tilt like a Cirque du Soleil performer, delighting the kids and impressing the neighbors.
It's not the kind of thing you see every day, however, if you follow Bring a Trailer, you might have seen this exact same truck before. That's because it appears to be the same one that was offered for sale in Georgia in February of this year. Back then BaT featured the Craigslist ad touting it as a 1983 Bedford 4-ton Response Vehicle. At that time it was offered for $6,500.
There's a lot that's all kinds of mysterious about this truck's origin and I'll let Ben, who claimed to be the original owner in the Georgia sale, shed some light on the matter.
From Ben's BaT article response:
I am the current owner. I don't know who posted the Bedford on here but it wasn't me, I have gotten many calls and lots of emails about it ever since it was posted here, so thanks. The truck is a TL series cab on a m series frame as best I can tell. It only has one serial number on the frame and yes a conversion was done on it by a British company named Boughton. It does have a title, the current title is from Utah and was titled by a previous owner. GA DMV has refused to title it for me, but gave me a tag, and it is insured through progressive. I have had to do a little work to it since i bought it, but the truck starts fine, and the hydraulic bed works as designed. The only problems with it are leaking wheel cylinders, and a leaking LF axle seal. I have taken it on 3 80 mile round trips and it has done fine.
Pictures do it no justice, it is a BIG vehicle, it has plenty of power, shifts great and will pull the moon if you can hook to it. It is well under 26000 GVWR and is not air brakes, it is hydraulic brakes with air assist.
Someone has put a deposit down for me to hold it while he checks on how to get it transported. If that doesn't work out I will post here and let you guys know. Thanks.
So now, this '86 (or '83) Bedford has made its way to Eugene Oregon, where it seems to be thriving, or at least the pic of it amongst the trees and ferns looks dreamily bucolic. It also looks like it can get some work done if that's what someone needs to have happen. But is it worth its now asking price of $11,000?
That's a hefty markup since February, and considering that there are plenty of Internationals, GMCs, Isuzus, and a bunch of other trucks around that will do much of what this one will, along with offering a reliable parts network, would anyone buy this other than for the novelty factor?
What do you think, based on the ad and the history, does this Bedford seem worth that $11,000? Or, is that a price that you just plain wouldn't want to get in bed with?
You decide!
Eugene OR Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to picoFarad for the hookup!
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