1971 Ford Escort Estate TV Rental Van - DER MkI

1971 Ford Escort Estate MkI in The Cuckoo Waltz, TV Series, 1975-1980 Ep. 1.06

Class: Cars, Wagon — Model origin:

00:18:46 Background vehicle

Author	Message
Sandie ◊ 2016-10-21 21:14	Aftermarket converted Estate or something rare and official?
dsl ◊ 2016-10-22 00:22	DER were big TV/radio rental firm, so I guess had a big fleet. Factory build likely - probably without rear seats as well - for fleet customer. Away from home so can't pursue further at the moment. Black grille matches K plate.
Sunbar ◊ 2016-10-22 14:16	I cannot say if rear seats were fitted but I thought the DER panels were removable as confirmed here... "During the week, an employee would use the "van" as his office, however the "vans" were slightly more up market than your normal van. The estates were fitted with DER signs at the front and rear at the car, and lettered paneling over the side windows by the load carrying section of the vehicles. Clips and other fastenings were used to hold all motifs to the vehicle, and at weekends the employee could remove these and use the "van" as a family car. Although the estate cars cost considerably more to buy than vans, on the whole the re-sale value remained higher, cars were more practical for employees and some suggested that the engines were better when comparing with a van." http://www.ado16.info/der_vans.php
jcb ◊ 2016-10-23 16:55	Yep they were estate cars,the bean counters realised they had a much higher 'residual value' at end of service so 'whole life costs' were lower than the cheaper to purchase vans. Oops beginning to sound like a bean counter myself -- Last edit: 2016-10-23 16:56:08