The Golden Age of the Crayford Conversion

Crayford engineering was a Kent-based British coachbuilder, responsible for some of the best-known convertible and estate conversions of many of Britain’s best-selling cars over a twenty-year period, from the 1960s-80s. It was founded by David McMullan and Jeffrey Smith in 1962 and the pair’s strong product offerings during that period could be regarded as the ‘the golden age of the Crayford conversion.’

In fact, the idea of converting Britain’s best-selling cars was a clever business move for three important reasons. Many of Britain’s mainstream car manufacturers at the time, such as the British Motor Corporation (BMC)/British Leyland (BL), Ford and Vauxhall, were producing conventional three-box saloons in either two- or four-door flavours. This popular-selling body style was ideal for coachbuilders, enabling them to engineer a convertible or estate car variant.

Secondly, the cars that Crayford selected for its conversions were some of the most popular cars of the time, which put the company in a good place for strong sales expectations. The British car industry at the time also had access to strong supply chains that were instrumental in the production of cars manufacturing at home, both in factories and for smaller coachbuilders.

Crayford’s very first product offering was a convertible conversion of the BMC Mini in 1963, which cost buyers £129. The Mini Crayford convertible was launched just four years after the original Mini, which was already on its way to becoming an iconic car of the swinging sixties. Crayford was onto a winner - the soft-top version of one of Britain’s best-selling small cars of the time was enough to put the company on the map.

Other conversions appeared throughout Crayford’s first decade in business. The company applied their engineering skills to produce a convertible version of the two-door BMC 1100/1300, a car that topped the sales charts for most of the sixties and into the early seventies. It even produced a hatchback version of the very same car, the Crayford BMC 1100 estate.

Instead of a one-piece tailgate hatchback design, the Crayford BMC 1100 estate featured a somewhat unusual split-tailgate design, which was popular on other BMC estate models of the era and is still used today on cars built by Land Rover. Crayford’s engineering prowess allowed for estate-like fold-down rear seats, creating an even more practical version of an already popular model.

The golden age of the Crayford conversion continued in the 1970s, with bespoke conversions of mass-produced models provided for two BL dealerships, Mumfords and Spikins. Crayford chopped the roof off best-selling BL models, the Morris Marina and Austin Allegro, to produce the Mumford Marina convertible and Crayford-Spikins Allegro convertible. Examples of the Austin Princess estate conversion were also supplied to the Torcars group.

Crayford also produced convertible versions using other platforms, including popular Fords such as the Corsair, Capri and Cortina. The Crayford Cortina Mk2 is perhaps one of the best looking and best-known Crayford conversions today, due to the model’s popularity at the time, as well as the elegant design of the conversion itself. Crayford also worked on convertible versions of Vauxhall models, such as the Viva HB and Cavalier ‘Centaur’ convertible.

McMullan and Smith also turned their hands to the contemporary German manufacturers, with the Crayford Audi 100 and a Volkswagen Scirocco convertible conversion known as the ‘Volkswagen Tempest.’ Mercedes-Benz abstained from building estate variants of its own models, until the S 123 model arrived in 1978. Crayford was able to facilitate this segment of the market with its own conversions of the W108, 114, 116 and S Class models – its most interesting conversion was of a stretched wheelbase 114 estate, known as the Crayford Dachshund, which could seat up to 12 passengers. Mercedes later objected to one of its cars being called a dog…

The 1980s saw Crayford begin its decline as a business, with convertible conversion projects of the Ford Fiesta ‘Fly’ and Austin Metro ‘Crayford Metropolitan’ collapsing due to low sales and legal action threats respectively. Tragically, founder Jeffrey Smith was killed in a road traffic accident in Spain in 1985. The sole surviving founder David McMullan, retired in 1987 and sold the company two years later. After this point, Crayford survived as a producer of Argo ATVs and never returned to coachbuilding.

Would you seek out a Crayford conversion to own as a classic today? Which other coachbuilders from yesteryear produced interesting classic variants? Let us know in the comments below.