In 1931, the Vauxhall Motors subsidiary of General Motors began to produce a new range of British-built commercial vehicles known as Bedfords. Their introduction followed the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, which not only decimated world trade, but also brought about a minor revolution in the way that goods were carried. A shift from rail to road was obvious, and more and more firms began to acquire their own delivery vehicles. Yet, to service this market a range of good, reliable (and above all) cheap vehicles were needed. It was into this market that Vauxhall successfully launched the new Bedford truck.

Yet in addition to commercial goods work, the Bedford chassis was also ideal for bodying as a small coach or service bus, and soon relationships were developed with firms like Duple, Waveney and Thurgood, and before long the Bedford chassis found its way into almost every type of coaching operation. By the end of the 1940s, Bedford coaches accounted for a massive proportion of all non-municipal buses and coaches in Britain. The story of this phenomenal rise and the history of Bedford buses and coaches is now told by transport historian Professor Alan Earnshaw using official photographs and company records kindly supplied by Bedford's parent company, Vauxhall Motors Ltd.