Bedford Bambi

Let’s start with Bedford, a General Motors brand created in 1930 to replace “British Chevrolet”—that is, Brazilian-built GM trucks, made with parts from Canada, imported into the U.K. GM eventually decided to do it properly and build trucks in Bedfordshire.

Fast-forward five decades. Bedford had lost its military contracts, stopped building large trucks and been reduced largely to rebadged imports from other General Motors partners, including Isuzu and Suzuki.

Here's something mind-blowing:

The Bedford Rascal is a Suzuki Carry van.

The Bedford Bambi, however, is a Suzuki Carry truck.

A revelation, surely.

Autohomes Ltd (sometimes styled as 'Auto-Homes'), based in the UK was an extremely successful manufacturer of caravans, and although the Bedford-badged Suzukis were tiny, the established builder of leisure vehicles was invited to take a look. A partnership with a motorhome manufacturer could help sell more trucks, Bedford reckoned, but Autohomes wasn’t convinced there was enough van there to convert.

Then, rival Romahome unveiled a camper conversion based on the Suzuki Carry truck. When Autohomes’s managing director saw the nearly identical Bedford, he saw the solution.

Now it only needed a name.