Remembering front sliding doors on vans

[Hairy_Kebab]

I used to have an old ex RAC Sherpa van with front sliding doors and remember driving with them open which i used to love squirting in and out of traffic in Central London.Fantastic in a heavy downpour when spray off the front wheels used to fill your right hand view when turning left.Its a shame people wont be able to experience driving these vans again.Keep looking out to buy a Sherpa,Transit,CF or any other van with these doors but can i find any

[Rocket88]

Bedford CA ? Probably easier to find, oddly!

[dollywobbler]

I have a somewhat dim view of them because as a child, my mother saw one take a tumble in her road. Driver fell out then got squashed by the van. Not pleasant!

 

I remembered this when on a work day out, Richard Gunn was hooning about in Ford's delicious early Transit. No seatbelts, vinyl seats and the sliding door right back. SAFE!

[Volksy]

Do the fugly UPS vans still have sliders, although I've never seen one for sale on the open market, so I assume they are disposed of canabalised at the end of their life by UPS.

[Ross_K]

Why did sliding doors disappear? Elf & Safety or what?

 

They make sense for delivery work around town where you're never going to be going fast enough to fall out going round a corner...

 

edit: scrub that :D Although wearing a FUGGIN SEATBELT would help avoid stuff like this:

I have a somewhat dim view of them because as a child, my mother saw one take a tumble in her road. Driver fell out then got squashed by the van. Not pleasant!

 

My favourite sliding-door van:

[Mr Lobster]

You could still get slidy door LDVs certainly about ten years ago. I delivered a couple of new LDV Pilots to Manchester Airport in about 2000 / 2001. Being stuck in traffic on the M60 and opening the slidy door just because you could was novel!

[messerschmitt owner]

I loved the slidey doors on my old CAs - used to drive one down the motorway with the doors open and seat belt on - always got funny looks!

[willswitchengage]

YES these are excellent and like Lobster says LDV put them on Pilots so you can get a fairly (ahem) modern van with them on. Other than that it'd have to be an ex-UPS Grumman-Olson Vario/Daily van - but they're obviously huge, and brown. GR3.14 for hot summers days.

[nigel bickle]

My J7 camper has 3 sliding doors- which feels mighty impressive

 

 

No seatbelts, (being rectified) but the passenger side has a nice metal armrest- and the driver an chain across the door!

 

Happy days!

[michael1703]

I owned A729 XOJ which was a mk2 transit ex rac van which had sliding doors, driving in summer, with a draft up the trouser leg was lovely

 

The doors coming off their catches when you braked hard like a pair of guillotines used to frighten the shit out of me though

[quicksilver]

This seems a suitable place to leave this snap from today

[michael1703]

yeah, you win

 

Mk1's came out in oct 65, so thats a very early model, will have bits of ford thames 400e in it as they were still in production, think they share a diff and a few bits

[Hairy_Kebab]

This seems a suitable place to leave this snap from today

PERFECT......

[FredTransit]

Buckinghamshire. LWB 100 Mk2 towing an early Mk1, must be Peter Lee......

On the subject of sliding doors, Dormobile transits all had sliding doors, and parcel vans too. I think they carried on to the Mk3.

[Wilko220]

Yes, Royal Mail LDV Pilots used to have them until fairly recently, I think.

 

Are they not allowed any more, or just gone out of fashion?

[kinkersaab]

I would imagine its down to cost... once the vans that had them are no longer being made, it would be a costly job designing sliding doors onto a van not designed for them. sad though.

[FredTransit]

Yeah prob too expensive to offer 2 types of body panels for different front doors (transit sliding doors need special panels immediately behind the front doors with captive nuts for the tracks). Transit = 32 door options! BTW, despite having 2 vans with em, I'm not a fan!

[vulgalour]

The noise of a slidey door is quite nostalgic. Not all slidey door vans have the slidey door on the outside, Morris J vans have some sort of internal arrangement which is pretty neat.

 

[autofive]

 

 

 

all pics purlioned from 'the transit forum'

[Volksy]

I remember those white arrow vans, they always meant that goodies from my mums Marshall Ward catalogue were arriving when one of those pulled up outside the house

[FredTransit]

 

 

 

all pics purlioned from 'the transit forum'

 

So I was right, they did carry the slidy doors on the transit to the Mk3......

[willswitchengage]

I wonder what those Transits look like now with twenty years of rust and side-swipes?

 

 

Look a couple of Varios on ebay - although I've only ever seen their slidy doors on Snap-On vans so it could be aftermarket.

[Split_Pin]

Totally forgot about those mk3 white arrow vans with slidey doors! Didn't royal mail vans only have said apertures on the drivers side?

[autofive]

...and white arrow vans

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Fatha_Bo11ox had a slidey door on his CF Butchers van, i used to be amazed that he never fell out, he never did though

[trigger]

I'm a big fan of slidey door van's, shame you never see them anymore, this CF was the last one i remember seeing.

 

1975 Bedford CF Minibus by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

As for White Arrow vans we often had them come round in the 80's delivering parcels to my mum with stuff from Littlewoods, Happy days!