We at National Purebred Dog Day love hearing about things named after dog breeds. Whether it’s cocktails, boots, or furniture, we are intrigued by how something inanimate comes to be named for a creature with a pulse. As a rule, we have found that  the former believes (or hopes) that their object has the traits of the latter.

This is most evident in cars. From a wicked fast car named for a wicked fast Whippet to a impressive Tactical Support Vehicle referred to as a Wolfhound, several breeds have lent their names to vehicles that move people and their possessions.

Enter the Bedford Beagle.

The commercial vehicle arm of General Motors in Great Britain was Bedford, the large Vauxhall passenger car division which abided for around 70 years starting in 1925 (it became a subsidiary of Stellantis in January 2021).

We hold the Beagle breed in the highest esteem, so we mean this as a compliment when we mention that the Bedford Beagle was a stripped-out, no-frills “people” car,  a light panel van derivation of the slab-sided 1963-66 Vauxhall Viva HA saloon. Like the breed, the car was unpretentious, honest, friendly, and it got the job done. The Bedford Beagle was officially the only passenger car model ever to be sold under the Bedford banner.

The model was launched in 1964, but defunct by 1973.  The boxy HA van-based car was built/converted by GM/Vauxhall’s favoured coachbuilder, Folkestone-based Martin Walker (which also made several estate car conversions for standard Vauxhall models like the range-topping Cresta).

Critics said that even a fully-trimmed Bedford Beagle’s van roots were too evident when it drove. With a hard ride and oversteer-prone skittish handling, its performance was said to to be predictably lethargic and lazy (Beagle owners know this is nothing like their breed) but we can think of a few hundred motorheads that would like nothing more than to have one of these cars in their garage now. The vans were very common at one time, but there are there are very few Bedford Beagles left today.

For the gearhead readers out there, Wikipedia writes that the car introduced in 1964 “originally came with a 1057 cc engine mated to a 4-speed gearbox…the Beagle was basic, with drum brakes all round and minimal interior trim. Later engine upgrades arrived in 1967 (1159 cc) and 1972 (1256 cc), bringing the top speed up from 72 mph (116 km/h) to about 80 mph (129 km/h), but the Beagle was finally discontinued in 1973. It was more or less replaced by the superior Viva HC estate cars.”

You can read more about this car here. 

Image credit:igorr1/istockPhoto