ParkRoyal2100:
ramone:
what was it about the Bristol RE chassis that set it apart from the rest.As I wrote above, I’m an interested amateur when it comes buses, so if anyone has better knowledge, by all means chime in.
The RE (designed and built by Bristol Commercial Vehicles) was the first successful rear-underfloor engined bus; though it went into service in the early 60’s, sales took off from the late 60’s onward. Because it was essentially body-on-chassis, operators had a range of chassis options they could specify, from short-wheelbase high-floor (RESH) to long-wheelbase low floor (RELL) to maximum wheelbase high-floor (REMH) and operators could mix ‘n’ match specs. Same with the running gear - short, medium or long final drive; manual box or the standard 4-speed SCG; Gardner 6HLX or O.680 Leyland. There were numerous bodybuilders (some bus only, some coach only, many could do both) from the most popular (ECW) to Northern Counties to Alexander to Duple to Plaxton (and Hess and Hawke in NZ). RE’s were common all around Britain and Ireland as as single-decker buses, coaches and DP (dual-purpose) buses - i.e. bus bodies with uprated seats, luggage racks, high final-drive - if you wanted something smaller/ narrower, Bristol offered the LH (again with options as to length/ width/ body) and if you needed to move more people then there was the VR double-decker and its predecessors (Lodekka, K-series…).
As far as I can tell, in operation the RE was fairly robust (drivers abusing the SCG box aside); the drivetrain was advanced but not excessively complex for a competent service team to keep running (Gardner 6HLX and Leyland’s O.680 were commonplace to any diesel fitter), and there were parts on tap. Production stopped in 1981 or so (more on that shortly) but it says something about the reputation of the RE that municipals in New Zealand wanted to buy them.
It sounds very Leyland that they wouldnt meet the customers requirements
Leyland (the truck maker) had a 25% stake in BCV back in the mid-late 60s. By 1972, Leyland (under BL) had bought out BCV.
From 1972 on, the RE had a direct competitor in UK markets - none other than the Leyland National, which was developed jointly by the (then new) government-owned National Bus Company and … guess who?.. the government-owned BL. I’m sure the timing of the takeover of Bristol by BL was entirely coincidence. Which heavy-duty bus platform do you think Leyland would promote? (answers on a postcard to Bristol Commercial Vehicles, Brislington, Bristol BS4).
Aside from the row and the upset that the incorporation of many long-established bus companies into the NBC caused, the NBC made it pretty clear that it would much prefer it if the likes of Southdown, Ribble, Midland Red, et al. took the National over the RE. One big problem was that the “latest and greatest” from Workington wasn’t what many subsidiaries wanted, let alone what those operators outside NBC wanted. For a start, it came in one form - the 11.3m single-decker as assembled. No choice of chassis length, no choice of floor height. No choice of drive-train either - you took it with the O.510 or you got nowt, unless of course, you wanted to be difficult and specify the RE (with a Gardner, if you really wanted to be recalcitrant).
But all that is domestic market hullaballoo. Let’s say you were a major municipal operator in The Colonies and you wanted a reliable, reputable British bus chassis (the Bristol RE), but Leyland (via BL) is so determined to flog the National that it’s prepared to forego hundreds and thousands of overseas orders. Well, NZ took the RE chassis upon BL’s insistence that they came with the Headless Wonder (the O.510). Other, smaller operators took the 10.9m National (the only version BL offered) in limited numbers and then went elsewhere. Yet other, much bigger operators (Sydney, HK, Singapore) told Leyland where to shove the Workington Wonder and went on to buy thousands upon thousands of M-B O305s, MAN SL2-- series, Volvo B58/ B10B/B10M chassis from manfacturers who were willing to listen to their customers and supply them with something they wanted.
The Leyland National did, however, have some intelligent features - it was the first British integral and modular design, so that components could be swapped/ exchanged much easier than a traditional body-on-chassis design. The problem (again, this is all my amateur opinion) with the National is that it took Leyland years to release a shorter-wheelbase (10.3m) equivalent to the RESL/ RESH, years to sort out the vague steering and none of its customers ever really got on with the O.510. The big irony is that Leyland did (eventually) address many of the valid criticisms of the original National in the Mk2, released in the early 80s (just as BCV was shutting down). The Mk2 steered better, the heating worked, the rear weight bias was ameliorated and - biggest deal of all - they came with a choice of engines: 0.680, 6HLXB, even the TL11. A rear-underfloor engined Leyland bus platform with some options - where have we heard that idea before? Oh, yes: the Bristol RE.
Sounds very familiar