Corgi Northern Collection Bedford O Series Pantechnicon & Bedford OB Coach

Diecast metal with plastic parts

Bedford Vehicles, usually shortened to just Bedford, was a brand of vehicle manufactured by Vauxhall Motors, which was ultimately owned by General Motors (GM). Established in April 1931 and constructing commercial vehicles, Bedford Vehicles was a leading international lorry brand, with substantial export sales of light, medium, and heavy lorries throughout the world. It was General Motors Europe's most profitable venture for several years.

 Bedford's core heavy trucks business was divested by GM as AWD Trucks in 1987, whilst the Bedford brand continued to be used on light commercial vehicles and car-derived vans based on Vauxhall/Opel, Isuzu and Suzuki designs. The brand was retired in 1991; subsequent GM Europe light commercials were branded as either Vauxhall or Opel, depending on the market.

A pantechnicon van, currently usually shortened to pantec, was originally a furniture removal van drawn by horses and used by the British company "The Pantechnicon" for delivering and collecting furniture which its customers wished to store. The name is a word largely of British English usage.

The word "Pantechnicon" is an invented one, formed from the Greek pan ("all") and techne ("art"). It was originally the name of a large establishment in Motcomb Street, Belgravia, London, opened around 1830. It combined a picture gallery, a furniture shop, and the sale of carriages, while its southern half was a sizable warehouse for storing furniture and other items. Seth Smith, whose family were originally from Wiltshire, was a builder in the early 19th century, and constructed much of the new housing in Belgravia, then a country area. Their clients required storage facilities and this was built on an awkward left-over triangular site with a Greek style Doric column façade, and called Pantechnicon, pseudo-Greek for "pertaining to all the arts or crafts".

Subsequently, special wagons were designed with sloping ramps to more easily load furniture, with the building name on the side. The very large, distinctive, and noticeable horse-drawn vans that were used to collect and deliver the customers' furniture came to be known as "Pantechnicon vans." From around 1900, the name was shortened to simply Pantechnicon. The Pantechnicon Ltd, a furniture storage and removal company, continued to trade until the 1970s.

The building was largely destroyed by fire in 1874, but the facade still exists and the usefulness of the vans was by then well established and they had been adopted by other firms. As of 2015 the façade and the building behind it has been leased by its owner, Grosvenor Estates, to Cubitt House, a company specializing in pubs and restaurants in the Belgravia area, and is to be redeveloped into a "food and retail emporium" over six floors, including a basement and a roof-terrace

Slumberland Furniture is headquartered in Little Canada, MN. The company has an additional office location in Little Canada and bought a third in Oakdale, MN in January 2016.

Originally, the company specialized in mattresses and La-Z-Boy recliners. Today, Slumberland has 123 stores in 12 states. It is one of America's top sellers of La-Z-Boy upholstery and one of the top sellers of Sealy, and Simmons in the Midwest.

The Bedford OB was a bus chassis manufactured by Bedford from 1939.

The Bedford OB was designed as a successor to the Bedford WTB. It had a wheelbase of 14 feet 6 inches (4.42 m), and was a semi-forward control model, designed to carry 26 to 29-passenger bodywork. It was fitted with a 27.34 horsepower petrol engine, and had a four-speed manual gearbox and fully floating rear axle. The brakes were of the vacuum servo-assisted hydraulic type.

Although only 73 were built prior to the cessation of production due to World War II, it reappeared in a largely unchanged form at the end of the war, continuing in production until 1951. A total of 12,766 were produced, making it one of the most popular buses of its type ever.

Bedford co-developed with Duple the "Vista" coachwork for the OB, fronted by a classic bullnose. The ash framework was reinforced with steel, and the floor made from hardwood with softwood tongued and grooved boarding, with the exception of the cab area which was finished with alloy chequerplate. Seating capacity was normally 29 with overhead luggage racks provided for passengers, whilst the rear luggage boot was also used to store the spare wheel. The price of a complete coach, including finishing in a two-colour livery, was £1,314.10s for a 27-seater, and £1,325.10s for a twenty nine seater.

Geared to reach speeds of at least 40 miles per hour (64 km/h), which was fast for its day, the OB is remembered by many for its characteristic gearbox whine.

Ribble Motor Services commenced operating in 1919, and grew to be the largest operator in the region, with a territory stretching from Carlisle in Cumberland to southern Lancashire.

In 1961, the Scout Motor Services business was purchased, and absorbed into Ribble in 1968. The W.C.Standerwick coaching business had been purchased in 1932 but was kept as a separate subsidiary of Ribble .

Ribble operated Cherry Red and Ivory liveried vehicles throughout its BET Group ownership, changing to Poppy Red for buses and white for coaches in 1972, 3 years after it had passed into the ownership of the nationalised operator National Bus Company when corporate liveries were introduced. The first batch of Leyland Nationals were delivered from the factory finished in dark red paint but were repainted into Poppy Red by the company before they entered service.

Prior to the deregulation of bus services in 1986, Ribble's territory was reduced with the company's north Cumbrian operations passing to Cumberland Motor Services, and the Merseyside operations to a recreated North Western. As part of the privatisation of the National Bus Company, Ribble was sold on 2 March 1988 in a management buyout. In May 1989, Ribble was purchased by Stagecoach Holdings. In May 1989, Barrow Borough Transport was purchased.

In April 2001, Stagecoach sold the Ribble operations in Blackburn, Hyndburn, Clitheroe and Bolton to the Blazefield Group, which rebranded them as Lancashire United and Burnley & Pendle.

As a subsidiary of Stagecoach, the company remained registered as Ribble Motor Services. Its services were operated under the trading name Ribble Buses, then as Stagecoach Ribble, Stagecoach in Lancashire (which became part of Stagecoach North West) and finally as part of Stagecoach Merseyside & South Lancashire.[cit Its bus routes were transferred to Glenvale Transport Ltd (formerly Stagecoach Merseyside) in 2013.

The company mainly operated Leyland vehicles, built nearby in Leyland, Lancashire. However, there were some exceptions. In 1948/9 Sentinel had developed an underfloor-engined single deck bus, which increased the seating capacity significantly. Ribble took two batches of these buses.In the 1960s Ribble ordered ten lightweight Bedford coaches for their extended tour fleet.

A batch of Bristol single deck vehicles was ordered before the government brought together Leyland Bus and National Bus Company into the plan to build the Leyland National bus factory in Cumberland. After the first batch of 10 fitted with Leyland engines showed poor fuel economy, a larger batch of 30 was delivered with Gardner engines, which had better fuel efficiency. Some Bristol VR double-deckers were also acquired.

Ribble engineers were responsible for specifying and maintaining coaches for Standerwick and North Western (the coach fleet in Manchester left over when the original North Western Road Car Company was split between the SELNEC PTE, Crosville Motor Services and Trent Motor Traction) even after they were transferred and became National Travel (North West).

Two batches of the lowheight Albion Lowlander double deck service bus were purchased by Ribble, all the LR1 model. 1851 to 1860, and a year later 1861 to 1866. They had a fully fronted cab, and were a replica of the highbridge PD3's that Ribble operated; they were not popular machines. Ribble acquired a 17th example, when they took over Bamber Bridge Motor Services, 747EUS the ex demonstrator; this was Ribble's only half cab example