Yup, it’s a Mopar! But definitely not one most American Dodge Charger, Plymouth GTX, or even Ram 1500 fans would recognize. This is a 1982 Dodge SpaceVan, a relic of Chrysler Corporation’s 1960s overseas ambitions and a favorite of public utility companies in the United Kingdom. Despite its Skylab-era name, it was all about capacity, not space-age technology. (Notably, Skylab is still the roomiest space station ever built.)

The SpaceVan is a relabeled, updated version of the Commer FC (Forward Control, originally called the “PA Series”), a Rootes Group design that debuted in 1959 to challenge new forward control vans like the Austin/Morris J2, Bedford CA, and Standard Atlas. It did well in its early years but never ended up posing much of a competitive threat to any vans outside the U.K., and once the front-engine Ford Transit arrived, forward-control vans went into a steady decline across all of Europe.

However, the FC and SpaceVan lasted a long time thanks to its very loyal fleet customers, many of whom were intertwined with the U.K. Government. (A situation not unlike Chrysler’s domination of the law enforcement car market in the U.S.).

Commer, Rootes, and the FC Van

Commer was an old truck manufacturer, started in 1905. Business boomed during WW1, but the postwar bust brought financial calamity, and Commer barely scraped by until it was bought by luxury carmaker Humber in 1925. Their management shortened the “Commercar” brand to “Commer,” a name unlikely to have been chosen in later eras. Humber itself was bought by the Rootes Brothers (Billy and Reggie) six years later and joined by another truckmaking acquisition, Karrier, in 1934.

These brands were all about building trucks, but light commercial vehicles, derived mostly from Hillman cars, appeared after WW2. The most famous of those is the Commer Cob, twin to the Hillman Husky (in front and rear engine form), but Rootes wanted to pursue the larger van/truck market dominated by the Austin/Morris, Bedford, and Ford. In 1957, Forward Control vans were the future, so it cobbled together its own “FC” and kept costs down by raiding the Hillman and Humber parts bins.

The One-box shape looked much like a rounder version of Austin’s J2. The front suspension came from the Humber Hawk, while the initial PA-Series van used 1.5-liter and later 1.6-liter fours and gearbox came from the Hillman Minx, though a Perkins diesel was also offered.

In 1968, the 1.6 was replaced with the Hillman Hunter’s 1.7-liter four and an electric overdrive four-speed starting with the PB-Series FC. This was a big improvement since this Van could barely manage 60-65 mph, and running it flat out all the time wore out engines that would otherwise have lasted a long time in the much lighter, smaller Hillman Minx. A Borg-Warner automatic was also offered in the 1970s, though takers were few.

Ruthless Space Efficiency

The front track was 7.5 inches (19cm) narrower than the rear to help the turning radius, and it was exceedingly maneuverable in tight spaces, just 167 inches (4.2M) long, but the big body over a very narrow track and enclosed wheels made it look comically trolley-like from some angles. It was offered in many different bodies, cutaways, three separate pickup styles, and five different vans, including a “mobile shop” option.

In commercial terms, the FC was ruthlessly space efficient, and indeed the SpaceVan name was later coined not because of connections to Plymouth Satellites but to advertise that it had up to 200 cubic-feet of interior volume. For comparison, a brand new short-wheelbase GMC Savana van (the oldest vehicle design currently sold in North America) has 239 cubes but is almost five feet longer than the FC/SpaceVan. But in carving out every last cubic inch of volume, Rootes also set itself some traps.

The forward cabin is very cramped and the engine is very difficult to do major service on, a problem given its tendencies toward premature wear. Like Dodge’s American Ram Van, it’s serviced through a hatch between the two front seats (though some SpaceVans use a bench). That’s fine for little jobs like spark plugs, but removing the engine via the factory procedure means dropping the entire front subframe and suspension.

Eventually, the General Post Office (GPO), this van’s biggest fleet operator by far, took to removing the engine through the cab and winding it through one of the doors. It was just faster and easier, but hardly ideal. The car-sourced components also weren’t necessarily up to harsher treatment, and some suspension parts, like lever arms, would wear out in only a few months in heavy use.

Chrysler and the Dodge SpaceVan

For these reasons, many early customers eventually stopped using the FC after the Mk1 Transit appeared on the scene. But the GPO loved this van, and so did a bunch of other utilities. Commer FCs were also popular as Campers (and we profiled one back in 2020) but the primary use of this van was for GPO telephone work and other utility jobs, like TV detectors (it’s a long story, American readers) and postal work. It was even largely called the “telecom van” by the 1980s.

In hopes of matching the international presence of GM and Ford, Chrysler gradually took over Rootes from 1964 to 1967, so Commer became a Chrysler brand. They kept updating the van in various small ways before renaming it “SpaceVan” in 1974. For a brief period, it was sold as a Commer, Dodge, or Fargo before 1976, when it became solely a Dodge regardless of market. While Chrysler had a large presence in the U.K. prior to WW2, it rarely ever used the “Dodge” brand there until the 1970s thanks to it similary to “Dodgy” (British slang for dangerous or of low quality). Even so, it standardized it’s European commercial vehicles on Dodge not long before OPEC I.

Chrysler Europe was in deep financial trouble by then, but Harold Wilson’s Labour Government approved loans to keep the company going. Part of the deal was that the SpaceVan would get some upgrades and continue in various government fleets, ensuring a new lease on life.

In mid-1977, the SpaceVan got a final facelift. At the time there were two versions, the 2000 and the 2500, with payloads of 18 cwt (2,016 lbs.) and 22 cwt (2,464 lbs.), with the lightest 15 cwt (1,560 lbs.) version dropped. (For those of you unfamiliar, cwt means “Hundredweight.”) Buyers could choose from low or high-compression versions of the 1.7 (50 or 57 hp) or the diesel (41 hp), but it was only selling in small numbers by then, around the time PSA bought Chrysler Europe amid Chrysler’s looming American cash crisis.

The End of the SpaceVan

Amazingly, though PSA was slated to drop the Dodge SpaceVan in 1981, another big order from the Post Office (and soon-to-be British Telecom) kept production going until February 17, 1983.

We originally posted this specifically for a Mopar Monday facebook post, but the SpaceVan certainly wasn’t the only weird U.K. Dodge. Simca 1100 vans were marketed in there as Dodges, and (later on) so were Renault heavy trucks thanks to that company’s purchase of Chrysler’s European truck division (PSA got the cars and the light trucks).

Most SpaceVans in this condition were smelted a long time ago despite being pretty common well into the 1990s, but this rough “Dodgy” van keeps going in Northern Ireland. It was fun to see a commercial vehicle like this in the condition many ended up in late in their service lives. Hopefully, it’ll be going a while longer!