kevwag

On 25/07/2020 at 16:38, crompton 33 said:

Back in the 1970/80s when you went down the high street there where many TV rental shops . The Thorn group Der/ Radio rentals /multi broadcast . plus Rediffusion /Granada /Visionhire/Telefusion.  Just to name a few.  Looking for Vehicles in OO the only one i can find is a MK1 transit by Trackside in DER  livery.  Most TV rental companies had Ford Escort Vans or Escort estates and Bedford HA vans. There must be a call for these models. 

I've seen these advertised a bit. Even AliBaba had them at one point, which I though was surprising as Spectra were UK based and have faded into obscurity. China must have really done their homework!
These are 1:43 scale but I thought the picture might be a useful reference if you wanted to try and re-create the livery. It's made by Oxford diecast - maybe they could even re-scale the artwork and supply 00 scale transfers if you ask them nicely

On 26/07/2020 at 10:15, divibandit said:

Hi all,

I remember a rental firm using Viva HB or HC estates with the rear side windows being opaque and their logo on the panel. I don't know if they were just ordinary estates or factory produced vans. I can't remember if it was one of the big boys (RR, Granada) or a local firm. I've seen Escorts done the same way.

 

Steve

My Dad worked for Granada and I can confirm that the vehicles were Viva estates (not vans). They were later replaced by Chevette estates. These also had opaque panels covering the rear side windows displaying the brand logo, but that's about all I remember about them, other than helping my Dad clean his up for the annual inspection which earned you a cool £100 bonus (a lot back then) if you had kept it in good order.

The Chevettes were replaced by Austin Metros (much to the distaste of most of the engineers) and Granada had attempted to make up for the lack of boot-space by building a kind of wooden underfloor "secret" storage area for components and small tools that partly occupied the spare-wheel well whilst raising the floor level of the useable boot-space. This was totally impractical in reality as you had to empty the boot first to lift the lid. Since vehicles emblazoned with TV rental logos had started to attract a lot of vehicle thefts and break-ins, the Metros abandoned the branded window panels and the Granada logo was instead embedded into an inch-wide white line running the length of the car and the engineers were issued with two magnetic strips which could be used to complete the white line and cover the logo so as to appear as an ordinary, not-so-appealing family car when you weren't at work.