When British Leyland Truck and Bus was put up for sale by the British government, General Motors who founded and owned Bedford Trucks wanted to buy it. When this didn't come to pass, they took revenge by closing down Bedford Trucks and pulling out of G.B. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that but American companies are and continue to be ruthless. Just at what they did to their own city of Detroit. The worst part of the KM was the cab ergonomics, they were nothing special.
The deal was to buy Land Rover and Leyland Truck but Margaret Thatcher said no even though GM offered a large amount of money more than the two companies were ever worth.
The problem with Bedford was they had a huge contract to supply the British Army and because of this they never really kept up with the truck developments particularly for the driver.The TK had no power steering. They never produced a sleeper cab as far as I know. With no tilt cab like the Ford D series, Bedford's main rival, they were difficult to work on. Commercial sales fell and once the army contract came to an end they were finished. We had one KM in our fleet. It was a beast. The brakes were crap when loaded and the air operated parking brake would not release on many occasions. Ron Self who drove it got used to it but the rest of us did not like it at all.
The bedford TM has it's bed behind the seats... i had one... the parking brakes has twin big booster... the cabin is tilted by a hydraulic pump too the TM and the TL series have it
GM never updated their Bedford range over the years and by the 80's they were so behind the times, with dwindling sales and operators increasingly buying other brands, the writing was on the wall for the Bedford range, and through 1985 GM announced that they would stop making them.
I was 8 in '66... My dad used to sell bedfords & at the time, to my eyes & ears, the KM was the best truck in the world! Gad to have watched this...:-))
Difficult to work on having a fixed cab changing a fan belt was difficult the radiator could only come out from under the truck not enough air flow due to the radiator mounted high above the grill
i used to drive a 1974 KM skip lorry..."the green goddess"..lol...funny i cant remember much persuading to take the Leyland that replaced it... although i'd like to drive both today to compare...
Did I hear him say a 5 SPEED only! No wonder Australians turned to Yankee gear. British trucks just didn't suit the extreme distances and conditions that Australian drivers endured.