Was there a special tax for station wagons in GB??

[Miller]

I once was told, that a station wagon in the 70ies had a different tax than a limousine. This tax difference should have been the reason for some manufacturers to create wagons out of limousines with a kind of step at the back like the one on this photo.

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This is an english made conversion of the Mercedes S-Class by Crayford from the seventies. It would have been easy to create it without this little butt, but they did it to tell the car is still a limousine.

They did the same design to the /8 wagon they built and i also saw this little butt on a lot of english hearses of different brands.

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Can anyone shed some light into this mystery?

[Fred7A]

I don’t think there has ever been a tax difference for estate cars. However, vans derived from estate cars saved tax on the purchase price, leading to vehicles like the MG Metro van.

In any case, I really don’t think the little lip at the back would be sufficient to classify an estate car as a saloon, so I would say it is more a matter of style. When Ford made the Ford Escort a hatchback in 1980, it had a similar lip at the back, and the brochure claimed that the way the air flowed around this kept the back window much cleaner than on a conventional hatchback.

[fixer]

i've not herd of this either, I would think it was just down to there not being larger luxury estates being made by manufacturers leaving a gap to be filled by coach builders, much like the convertible fords by Crayford, performance models by Jeff Uren etc

[Viewfield]

As far as I can remember, "Purchase Tax" was introduced for luxury goods in the early fifties and replaced by "VAT" in 1973. Cars were subject to purchase tax as they were considered a luxury. This also applied to estate cars. Cars with no side windows after the drivers and front passenger windows were exempt as they were considered as working vehicles and therefore no luxury. This lead to many so-called vans being introduced. I had two, an Anglia 105 and a Minivan!

Rod