The story of YAK is surprisingly short. The design and construction of the KD (knockdown) body and chassis units was originally done by Manchester Ford, with the intent to send them off to third world countries - although it seems most of them ended up in South Africa, Greece and Australia. The genius of the YAK Yeoman was that there were only five panel forming tools needed to produce all the aluminium body panels. The bonnet, the wings (identical front and rear and side-to-side), the side panels (again interchangeable), the front grille panel, the rear quarter panel and the tail gate.
The UK National Research Development Council was enthusiastic about the idea too, and Manchester Garages Ltd., manufacturers of the YAK, received a grant to commence production. Unfortunately, however, the YAK Yeoman disappeared all too quickly. We do not have an exact date as to when manufacture ceased, but there is little doubt the car faced stiff competition from the likes of the
Suzuki
LJ80 and
Daihatsu F20. In all, only around 62 were eventually made - and despite our best efforts we can only find evidence of a few surviving to this day.
