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AWD Trucks (All Wheel Drive) was a British truck manufacturer that producedBedford trucks from 1987 to 1992, until it was merged withMarshall Aerospace and Defence Group. The last truck of the company was discontinued in 1998, and so the Bedford name became entirely defunct at that time. There is another British based company calledAWD Company Limited Of Camberley in Surrey England an entirely different original brandname who were specialized in developing and manufacturing all wheel driven lorries, earthmoving machinery and other 4WD 6WD roadvehicles founded in 1958 production ended in 1966.

In 1986,General Motors decided to sell theirBedford heavy-duty truck division toDavid J.B. Brown, who was the founder ofArtix Limited, while they re-formed the Bedford light truck division intoIBC Vehicles. Brown restarted production of the heavy-duty trucks (Bedford TJ,Bedford TK,Bedford MK, andBedford TL) under theAWD Trucks name in 1987, since theBedford name was owned byGeneral Motors, but was only used in light vans such as theBedford Midi andBedford Rascal, both of which were designs ofSuzuki andIsuzu. The now-called AWD Trucks were mostly made for the export market, on which they were very popular, but inBritain, they were only bought by theconstruction industry and themilitary.^[1]

At that time Brown opened a new firm calledMultidrive Vehicles that built 8x6 versions of theAWD TK andAWD TL, mostly for the military and special services. In 1992 the AWD brand was merged withMarshall Aerospace and Defence Group and the only truck that was kept in production was the very outdatedBedford TJ (which was now calledAWD TJ), because it was a very good export seller, especially inPakistan andIndia, but nevertheless, the production of the truck ended in 1998, and that was the end of theBedford name. By that time the AWD company had achieved £3 billion of exports and gained 4Queen's Awards to Industry, with an annual turnover of £400 million.^[2]

In 1996 David J.B. Brown sold the Multidrive Vehicles company toCaterpillar. Brown then became a design consultant for theCat 7 Series ADT. The Bedford trucks that were built by Multidrive Vehicles, were modernized, re-skinned, and were re-badged to Caterpillar vehicles.^[2]

These Caterpillar trucks were exported to many countries and were also used in theGulf War, inBosnia,Kosovo, and in other countries. The company re-entered theBritish market in 2001, and also started exports toSouth Africa that same year. In 2003 the company started producing a whole new range of military vehicles, but the production of the older trucks did not stop. With the death of Brown in 2006, the company was bought by Dr Qu Li.^[2]

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• MTL33
• AWD-Bedford » Tank Transporter
• AN AWD (BEDFORD TL) 17.18
• AWD » Bedford J
• Browned Off
• ENTERING THE FRAY
• Multidrive Vehicles

• Bedford vehicles
• Car brands
• 1987 establishments in England
• 1992 disestablishments in England
• British companies established in 1987
• British companies disestablished in 1992
• Emergency services equipment makers
• Defence companies of the United Kingdom
• Caterpillar Inc.

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