Sherpa Freight Rover LDV alert

[grogee]

Pretty sure I remember a Sherpa fibreglass roof being repurposed as a boat hull on an episode of Scrapheap Challenge. 

That blue one ^ is absolute sex

[eddyramrod]

15 hours ago, grogee said:

Pretty sure I remember a Sherpa fibreglass roof being repurposed as a boat hull on an episode of Scrapheap Challenge. 

That blue one ^ is absolute sex

Yes, I remember that.  It was from a 400.

[Rustybullethole]

[Joey spud]

Circa 1986 two litre petrol goodness.

[Matty]

20 minutes ago, Joey spud said:

Circa 1986 two litre petrol goodness.

That you Joey?

[Snipes]

1 hour ago, Rustybullethole said:

What's the thing on the roof?

[High Jetter]

2 minutes ago, Snipes said:

What's the thing on the roof?

Pantograph M9, it's an Electric van! 🤣

[Joey spud]

20 hours ago, Matty said:

That you Joey?

No I didn't start until 2001.

But a colleague based in Bodmin who did his induction the same time as me was issued a R reg LDV Convoy Hi top five seater alas I got S440WWP a turbo diesel smiley Transit. 

[Matty]

44 minutes ago, Joey spud said:

No I didn't start until 2001.

But a colleague based in Bodmin who did his induction the same time as me was issued a R reg LDV Convoy Hi top seven seater alas I got S440WWP a turbo diesel smiley Transit. 

My first works van that was mine and mine only was Y484NLK. Unfortunatly also not an LDV. A T4 with the 5 pot td.

[Rustybullethole]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

Pantograph M9, it's an Electric van! 🤣

I hadn't noticed it though now I have I make you right. 

Also the RAC uniform reminds me of the Air Cadets. Very smart. 

Edited October 11 by Rustybullethole

[Rustybullethole]

 'bags of skunk, and lsd'

'in my yellow, ldv'

[Joey spud]

21 hours ago, Rustybullethole said:

Also the RAC uniform reminds me of the Air Cadets. Very smart. 

Post ww2 the patrol attire was actually surplus RAF uniform. 

[Yoss]

I found this whilst I was looking for some other stuff. It crops up in a few of my old pictures but I wish I'd had the foresight to take a picture of it in its own right, but alas not. 

[R Lutz]

Thats a great photo. 

[Heavyspanners]

Now this one is a proper rarity - on FB Marketplace now.

It's a Sherpa milk float, created by chopping bits out of the van shell to make a rather odd-looking open-sided vehicle. It's a proper conversion, not someone's DIY angle-grinder job, made by Osbourne Motor Bodies - still going today, and they even do a milk float version of the Maxus now.



This Sherpa is a 1984 model, but it's got the later squishy bumper and the Leyland Daf grille, with the badge area designed to take the bigger Leyland Daf badge, although the smaller Freight Rover badge was still fitted for the first year or so of the Leyland Daf era. So it looks like a certain amount of refurbishment has gone on, with later parts being fitted - possibly because of a front-end shunt on the milk round one foggy morning.

Rotten as a pear, mind, but it's so rare the asking price is probably not too unreasonable.

Edited to add:

Well, you wait ages for a Sherpa milk float, and then they all come along at once. This is also on FB Marketplace....



Not a Sherpa, although somewhat related. It's the J4 version of the Osbourne milk float.

Interesting difference between the two shells - the J4 had internal sliding doors, which took up some of the load space inside, and required the milk float load bed to be cut away to accommodate them. The Sherpa had external sliders, which allowed an unobstructed (and slightly bigger) load area. And, of course, on the J4 you had a B Series engine in the cab with you.

 

[eddyramrod]

A friend of mine used to work with his dad on their independent milk round, using a Sherpa float that was obviously one of those Osbournes.  AAJ 202Y if I'm remembering correctly (bearing in mind it's probably 30 years since I last saw it!).  It was royal blue, I remember that.

[grogee]

In the Devon garage where I worked as a spotty youth, they converted the local dairys' Bedford Rascal pick up bought by the local dairy into 'milk float' spec. 

This involved adding a frame welded from 2" square tubing to add plywood shelves for the milk crates and a roof which even had a little 12v lamp so the milkman could see what he was doing on dark mornings. 

So it was cost effective to have a Rascal hand-converted by a general purpose garage! 

What's interesting to me is that every town and village in the land had a dairy delivering milk, yet no manufacturer or converter (apart from the one above highlighted by @Heavyspanners) was offering this 'off the shelf' for a petrol or diesel van.

In other words the traditional electric milk float was unsuited to more rural, hilly locations where its range and speed weren't sufficient. 

[martc]

I know Sherpas became Freight Rovers for a time, but I didn't realise that Austin Rover actually included them alongside Land Rovers and Range Rovers in advertisements -

Note the Freight Rover in the photo has 'Sherpa' on the number plate, but no mention of Sherpa in the text.

[stuboy]

[grogee]

Comic Sans Serif Facebook, @stuboy? 

Have a word with yourself! 

[Heavyspanners]

On 13/10/2025 at 12:24, grogee said:

In the Devon garage where I worked as a spotty youth, they converted the local dairys' Bedford Rascal pick up bought by the local dairy into 'milk float' spec. 

This involved adding a frame welded from 2" square tubing to add plywood shelves for the milk crates and a roof which even had a little 12v lamp so the milkman could see what he was doing on dark mornings. 

So it was cost effective to have a Rascal hand-converted by a general purpose garage! 

What's interesting to me is that every town and village in the land had a dairy delivering milk, yet no manufacturer or converter (apart from the one above highlighted by @Heavyspanners) was offering this 'off the shelf' for a petrol or diesel van.

In other words the traditional electric milk float was unsuited to more rural, hilly locations where its range and speed weren't sufficient. 

I get milk delivered by Milk & More, a company which grew out of Dairy Crest, and now delivers just about everything. They use electric Maxus floats (with Osbourne load beds). Apparently the Maxus is regarded as the cheap and basic end of the electric van market - very much the traditional LDV niche, of course. But I have to say the acceleration from rest of my milkie's Maxus is impressive.  It's unfeasibly fast. The float doesn't seem to gather speed at all. It just seems to wink out of existence, as if it's gone into hyperspace.

If I can't find an electric Sherpa (and, frankly, I doubt if I ever will) my next-best option is a Smiths Cabac milk float, as used by Dairy Crest before they bought their Maxus fleet. The Cabac has a very cool feature: the cross-walkway behind the cab, with a central door at the rear. I'd like a Mk2, with the glassfibre cab (the Mk1 cab frankly looks like someone nailed it together in a shed).

They do come up for sale from time to time, but sometimes at silly prices. As with any electric vehicle, the value is all in the batteries. If the batteries are duds (or missing), you've basically got a very big tea trolley. AND THE PRICE SHOULD REFLECT THIS (he says sternly, looking at certain over-optimistic sellers on the internet...)

There are a few on FB Marketplace at the moment: two at silly money, and this one at not-too-bad price. 



It's on a Q plate, but quite a lot of milk floats are. They were maintained in much the same way as London Transport used to maintain Routemaster buses: by completely dismantling them and building them up again with new or refurbished parts. Once the workshops had assembled a complete milk float, they'd grab a number plate from the pile, slap it on, and send the float back into traffic. The DVLC (as it was then) took a dim view of this mixing and matching of parts. London Transport was a big enough organisation to tell them to get stuffed, but the dairies weren't - so Q-plates were deployed.

 

[auntiemaryscanary]

1 hour ago, Heavyspanners said:

I get milk delivered by Milk & More, a company which grew out of Dairy Crest, and now delivers just about everything. They use electric Maxus floats (with Osbourne load beds). Apparently the Maxus is regarded as the cheap and basic end of the electric van market - very much the traditional LDV niche, of course. But I have to say the acceleration from rest of my milkie's Maxus is impressive.  It's unfeasibly fast. The float doesn't seem to gather speed at all. It just seems to wink out of existence, as if it's gone into hyperspace.

If I can't find an electric Sherpa (and, frankly, I doubt if I ever will) my next-best option is a Smiths Cabac milk float, as used by Dairy Crest before they bought their Maxus fleet. The Cabac has a very cool feature: the cross-walkway behind the cab, with a central door at the rear. I'd like a Mk2, with the glassfibre cab (the Mk1 cab frankly looks like someone nailed it together in a shed).

They do come up for sale from time to time, but sometimes at silly prices. As with any electric vehicle, the value is all in the batteries. If the batteries are duds (or missing), you've basically got a very big tea trolley. AND THE PRICE SHOULD REFLECT THIS (he says sternly, looking at certain over-optimistic sellers on the internet...)

There are a few on FB Marketplace at the moment: two at silly money, and this one at not-too-bad price. 



It's on a Q plate, but quite a lot of milk floats are. They were maintained in much the same way as London Transport used to maintain Routemaster buses: by completely dismantling them and building them up again with new or refurbished parts. Once the workshops had assembled a complete milk float, they'd grab a number plate from the pile, slap it on, and sent the float back into traffic. The DVLC (as it was then) took a dim view of this mixing and matching of parts. London Transport was a big enough organisation to tell them to get stuffed, but the dairies weren't - so Q-plates were deployed.

 

My old man was a milkman from the late 60's all through the 70's. In the school holidays he'd pick me up halfway through his round (he was at the dairy at 2am) to help*. I used to love coming in and out through the cross walkway. Dad had it down to a knack - he'd be out the back with the correct number of bottles in his hand before the float had stopped.

He worked for Northern Dairies and most of the rounds were urban so used battery floats. They did cover some of the rural villages and used petrol or diesel floats but I was too young to remember if any of them were LDVs.

I've also looked at a Smiths float over the years. 10+ years ago they weren't toooo expensive but the state of the batteries were often unknown. A full set of the correct traction batteries is a v large amount of money for something that would be in effect a toy for me.

Anyway back to LDVs...

[Snipes]

+

=

Also look at this bad boy I stumbled upon. I bet this guy railed every bored housewife with a ride like that. 

[eddyramrod]

@danthecapriman ^THERE's a Code 3 project for you!  Couple of the 007 floats would do it, wouldn't they?

[danthecapriman]

24 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

@danthecapriman ^THERE's a Code 3 project for you!  Couple of the 007 floats would do it, wouldn't they?

I found that float the other day! After seeing these pics I’ll get it out!

Back to Sherpa’s… 

This was a James Bond car collection model that I repainted into Southern Electricity livery. Just need to add the logo’s.

 
The milk float conversions are interesting. I was looking for info about them a while back (to make a model) and found a brochure online somewhere.

(Not my image! From scouse73 on Flickr)

[Asimo]

Both of those J4 milkfloat conversions force the use of the hinged door which must have made the milkman's  job harder than with a pegged open sliding door.

[eddyramrod]

Actually, look closer at the Devon... door handles at the front of the door, and a specific reference in the text, point directly to the use of sliders on that one.  [/pedant]

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, eddyramrod said:

Actually, look closer at the Devon... door handles at the front of the door, and a specific reference in the text, point directly to the use of sliders on that one.  [/pedant]

I think that’s what that little recess/step section is for on the side behind the cab door? For the door to slide back into.

[Rustybullethole]

Party

Party

No party

[eddyramrod]

Anyone remember this one in Doctor Who?

https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_171448-LDV-400-1995.html

Think it was David Tennant's first series.