Meet The Owner – Mark Lee-Kilgariff and his Peugeot J7

Man, van, plan. That was Mark Lee-Kilgariff four years ago – and since opening his coffee shop to the locals around Knutsford, Cheshire, he hasn’t looked back.

Tatton Perk is its name; while he now has two static locations around the town, the business began trading from a 1976 Peugeot J7 van outside the local railway station.

‘I think it was a mid-life crisis,’ explained Mark. ‘I’d been a probation officer for 17 years […] I decided to make some big life changes. I was sat in [Moor] Park [Knutsford] with my daughters wishing for years I could get a good cup of coffee – because at the time Knutsford didn’t have anywhere decent to get one.

When I was looking to exit probation, I thought: “Why don’t I be the man who gets a van and does it?” We searched around [for vans].

We looked at Renault Estafettes, but we couldn’t get one high-roofed, and I was stooped over, we looked at Citroën HYs – they were nice, but they were very primitive, the engines and gearboxes in them are awful, and, being trendy, they cost a fortune.

[…] We started asking a lot of questions on forums and one guy [answered] who goes to France a lot sourcing Peugeot J7s […] he said that you had the corrugated sides, they looked a lot like [Citroën] H vans but that [in comparison] the engines were really reliable and quite modern, and that, because no-one [here] knew about them, they were quite cheap.

We got him to look around for a few, he found a couple but they weren’t high-top, then another came up on the internet with a high-top [raised roof], bid on it, lost it, was gutted, contacted the guy who had won it, and it turned out he converts them.’

The winner was Antonio Solaro of RO.YAL Conversion, a firm specialising in ice cream vans. Antonio does other work on commercials as a hobby, though completing the J7 also involved the expertise of Angel Cappuccino, which fitted the coffee machines, and Mark’s best man, who sorted out the cabinets.

Dual fuel Fracino coffee machines help get the brews in; built in Birmingham, they can run on electricity or gas.

Mark said: ‘Coffee hipsters tend to be a bit sniffy about Fracino, they’re seen as a bit more of workhorse of a machine [but] I found them brilliant, they’re bulletproof, they’re dead cheap, I can’t praise them enough.’

That just leaves Peugeot itself, which offered its J7 models from 1965 onwards in a host of body styles.

Most, like Mark’s high-top, were constructed by the coachbuilder Société des usines Chausson (Chausson for short) of Paris; for more elaborate bodywork, other works like Théault or Heuliez took the reins, making the likes of ambulances, minibuses, cattle trucks and horse vans.

Mark’s online loss had a silver lining: ‘We did a deal with him in the end, he did the bodywork, sprayed it, fitted the floors to it and delivered it to us. There was quite a bit of bodywork, the engine needed quite a bit of work, too.

We went for that van, despite it needing a lot of work, because it was the only one we could find with a factory-fitted high-top, which I needed for my height.

I was driving [it] around working out what was needed, and it was making a right racket. We took it to [classic car specialist] Bob Farnham and it turned out the engine wasn’t bolted in, it was held in by the belts. It was a leap of faith, but since the work was done it’s been really reliable [a new fabricated exhaust being the biggest expense four years later].

It was quite the transition […] I was in court doing a verbal report, walked out on the Friday in my suit, and on the Monday I was stood in the van at Knutsford station wondering what on earth I’d done.’

Mark sticks around the Knutsford area where the brand is best known, though the van has done weddings and gourmet food events.

Although Mark’s 1976 J7 benefits from front disc brakes (introduced two years prior) and a larger 1.6-litre engine (uprated model wide in 1970) its performance, blunted by equipment, means a steady pace is essential while driving.

With all the coffee making kit, including batteries, water tanks and cabinets installed, Mark estimates the J7 is up to about two-thirds of its full load capacity, a far cry from its use in France by a greengrocer and a butcher.

J7 specialist, Dave Allen, who Mark has said was an invaluable source of advice and spares, said that the van would take some getting used to – and so it proved.

Mark recalled: ‘I had to drive it for a year to get confident driving it any distance. The steering is massively heavy, it’s a proper workout [to move it around], it feels like a bus. The gearbox has loads of slack in it, you have to guess.

It sits comfortably with all weight in it around 60 kph (30 mph) […] It isn’t fast, it struggles up hills a bit but I’m in no rush, it’s nice to watch the world go by; people wave at you. The [drivers’] door comes back, you pin it back and you feel like a right cool hipster.

I don’t tend to go too far, the furthest I’ve been out is Old Trafford (Greater Manchester).
They’ve always asked for us, they wanted quality, and that’s always worked well.

The idea was always to try and challenge a few of the expectations that people have around coffee from a van, they think on the whole that it was convenient but not always good, whereas we went for speciality coffee beans and proper equipment to get a proper cup of coffee from us.’

On site, Tatton Perk’s van makes little to no noise. ‘We wanted to avoid the sound of diesel generators, especially at events like weddings, Mark said.

Four large leisure batteries and two gas bottles take the strain; ‘the heat is on gas and the pumps and the fridges run off batteries. ‘The only noise we make is preparation,’ he added.

Although frost did get to the solenoids in the coffee machine one year, the J7 ploughed on regardless, though Mark would like to get some of the rust bubbles sorted out and the serving hatches redone in the future.

It's been a truly international effort sourcing spares – some of which had to come from as far afield as Egypt and Germany – but forums, including those of Club Peugeot UK and the Peugeot J7 Facebook group, have helped with searches.

Thanks in no small part to his J7, Tatton Perk has been a great success, earning top ratings on Trip Advisor, retained by two coffee shops, a five person staff and a recent Knutsford Town Council Business Award.

Social media has been swamped by the little orange van and the coffee served within.
Having saved many a morning, coffee also saved Mark’s van.
The plan is working.