the PV 15/20 cwt, both of them prewar designs. Commer retained their 8 cwt van, which was updated in 1947, plus the larger 25 cwt van, while Austin produced a 10 cwt van, and then narrowed the gap between their larger trucks by introducing the 25 cwt '3 way' in 1947. Trojan were also there with their 15 cwt van, while Bedford had the PCV 10/12 cwt and the K 30 cwt, so there was plenty of variety in that particularly lucrative area of the market. In some ways the 15/20/25 cwt payload area was a bit of a no man's land. The smaller 5 cwt, 8 cwt and 10 cwt vans were usually car based, while the larger payload vehicles of 30 cwt, 2 ton and upwards were designed as trucks with little or no relationship to their passenger car cousins. In between is the 'grey' area, where the vehicles require a larger frame, springs, etc., to carry more weight than the larger saloons of the period, yet can suffer from a high unladen weight (and tax) if the beefier frames and axles of the real trucks are used. In the past there had been several contenders in this field, Ford, for instance, offering a choice of no less than three different engines for their 1939 15 cwt van, , and . These were some of the vehicles chosen to tow trailer fire pumps at the start of the war, no doubt because of their performance potential in an emergency situation. Another rather special type of van had come into use by some of the newspaper distributors, who required a vehicle of about , but with the performance of a sports car. The 15 cwt Ford was used for this type of operation in prewar days, as was the Chrysler Dodge of similar capacity. Large car chassis were also taken into use, the Humber Hawk and Snipe being in this category, while when they disappeared the Austin FX3 taxi chassis was used as a basis for these vans. Ford's entry into this field was the Pilot, a postwar design derivative of one of their popular prewar V 8 saloons. The chassis of this model was available for specialist bodywork, and a number of them appeared as high powered vans and pickups, many going for export. However, because of its minimal load space as a bonnetted vehicle the Pilot was