anyone got a Pat Ford van?

[JonE]

This bit of 1993 film popped up and gave me a bit more information on someone connected with restoring or making van bodies; he's now no longer around. From the interview, it seems he'd been 'making things all his life', which prompts me to ask whether any of you know any of the vehicular outputs, or have him on your old V5 certificate ownerships?  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkBdfWccxE8
[main bit at about 1.30]

[Jeff Taylor]

I doubt if this has any connection whatsoever to Pat Ford unless of course he'd previously worked for Arteesi Ltd. but it's interesting nonetheless. 

I acquired this rather faded leaflet from a lady whose late husband had rebuilt and re-bodied an A7 Van - the leaflet would appear to date from the early 1980's. 

      

The text on the leaflet is as follows:

"The "TAYLOR" Van Body by ARTEESI Ltd"

"The body is designed to accept Chummy front wings (rear wings are included in price). It has a steel floor and steel and wood framing. The panels are in aluminium and steel. The bonnet and non opening screen are included, but only the rear oval windows are glazed".

"This body will fit on the Ruby or LWB Austin 7 chassis with no modification".

Handwritten on the bottom - "Delivery about 3 months from date of order".

Online research has produced the following information - I should point out that the E. J. Taylor mentioned below is in no way related to me. 

Arteesi Ltd 
Vintage Car Restorers
Incorporation Date: July 13th 1979
Liquidator Appointed: February 1987
Director: E. J. Taylor

Their registered address was given as:
(Radford, Son & Co.)
12 Portland Street
Southampton
Hants
SO9 4LA

Arteesi Ltd appears to have developed out of Arteesi Engineering which was founded in 1977 and is listed in Steve Hole's 'A to Z of Kit Cars - The definitive encyclopaedia of the UK's kit-car industry since 1949' as a small British manufacturer of kit cars. 
The basis of the vehicles produced was the Austin 7 chassis.
Two sources on the internet suggest an open two-seat body made of steel was produced and one of those sources suggests only 3 were made. However there's no mention of any van bodies being manufactured - perhaps the van body never made it into production and this leaflet was just a speculative artists impression aimed at prospective buyers.   

One of the open two-seaters is listed on the A7CA Chassis Register / A7 Special Register - registration AKK 478 described as an April 1933 Arteesi Special and said to be owned by a 750 Motor Club member - however the DVLA Database shows it as Untaxed, the last tax being due on 1st November 2002 - perhaps sold, exported and registered abroad ?

[Mike Costigan]

Arteesi was a partnership between Ted Taylor and Keith Roach (and maybe a third member with the initial C to make RTC?); Ted was an early (late 1960s) member of the Van Register with a van of his own construction, very likely the one in the leaflet. I doubt if they had anything to do with Pat Ford - from the link it sounds like Mr Ford had not worked on a Seven before, and the van mentioned was probably a one-off.

[JonE]

Mike - Patrick Ford certainly had other interesting Sevens (I think a 24 Chummy was mentioned) and the Woodie posted on the Forum was once in his ownership though clearly made much earlier than his ownership. Clearly nothing as organised as Arteesi - but it would be interesting to see what standard the 'film' van was made to.
I wonder if Arteesi comes up in the Register on 'Body'. It probably should if they were around for 8 years.

[bystander]

The 'C' of RTC was (is) Barry Clarke. The RTC special bodies were conceived, designed and built by this trio as a means of making attractive use of the many redundant lwb chassis to be found at the time for a reasonable cost.

There was a Patrick Ford, resident in the South Wales area, a very skilled engineer and Austin Seven owner (Opal?), who I think died perhaps 10 years ago (?). He may or may not be the man in question. He was well known and active in the SWA7 club, and some of the longer standing members of that club will remember him.

[stuartroach]

Yep Artessi, Roach Taylor and Clarke.
Ted Taylor ran Artessi after Dad (Keith Roach) and Barry Clarke concentrated on other things.
When Ted wanted to pack up dad bought him up to our workshops under the Roach Trailers banner until we changed the name to Roach Manufacturing Ltd.
We still produce the RTC Special to this day along with various other Austin bodies and a whole load of other interesting stuff as well.

Stuart Roach

https://www.facebook.com/roachmanufacturing