The market gardener's mysterious camionette

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It shouldn’t be too strange a thing to find an old photograph of a lorry outside someone’s greenhouse. Farmers, horticulturalists and so on would have to make and receive deliveries, so it would be quite natural for them to be visited by a lorry belonging to ‘purveyors of horticultural sundries’ or ‘market gardeners of distinction’. To find a car in the same setting, though, is a little more unusual.

Patrick de Vos of the Netherlands came across this old picture in a family album and wondered what the car could be. He knows that it was specially made, or modified, for his granddad, who used it for his work as a horticulturist: “It was my grandfather’s first car, which was made for him with the pick-up bed at the back to use for taking goods to the markets and the market auction.” We thought it would be a particularly nice mystery motor for a Friday with those two lovely ladies and verdant greenhouses for context.

Apart from the pick-up bed, it seems to us that there was more work done to the body. There doesn’t appear to be a door on the driver’s side, so getting in must have been a matter of jumping or climbing over that spare wheel, which seems an unlikely arrangement for a car wearing a factory body. What do you think? Was the entirety of the car rebodied from scratch?

Unfortunately, no further information is available to us, but the wheels and the little glimpse of the radiator may just be enough to give somebody a clue. The general shape and size of the car is perhaps reminiscent of a French manufacturer. Do let us know your thoughts.

Words: Jeroen Booij; picture: Patrick de Vos
 

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