The Beaver has been built mainly on Mercedes-Benz van-derived minibus chassis such as the 709D and 811D, and was also built on the Renault S56 and S75 until 1992. Rare examples were also built on Iveco 49.10 chassis.
The Beaver 2, built on Mercedes-Benz Vario chassis, replaced the original Beaver in December 1996, and was still in production in 2007. In 2006 Plaxton launched the Beaver 3, the Beaver 2 body combined with the front end of a Plaxton Cheetah.
