Went on this earlier on today from Rabbat to Valletta.
It had Bedford, Dodge, and Leyland badges on, the badge on the steering wheel was Austin..so anybody’s guess.
This did not fill me with confidence.
This did not fill me with confidence.
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The last time I was on one of those Maltese buses the driver seat was a wooden beer crate with a rather nice cushion. 
Aye my Dad told me all about them in his Navy days.
Apparentlly when all the passengers were aboard, the driver used to cross himself and clutch his rosary beads befote setting off …enough to put anybody off.
This bus was just a novelty, they run a fully modern bus service withmodern vehicles now, we just boarded the bus for the experience 
IIRC Brisbane only had one for evaluation. They chose Volvo B58 instead.
I’ve been looking back through this thread and have read a post from Graham Edge answering a question i asked regarding why AEC or Leyland never fitted the TL12 into any of their coaches. I don’t know how i missed his reply at the time but he basically said they put it into a Bristol chassis in an attempt to get a contract with Israel. Mercedes won the contract but that would have neen a flying machine .BL had so much potential but … it’s all been said before
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If I remember right, BCV (Bristol Commercial Vehicles) got swallowed up by Leyland (Truck & Bus) which, aside from consigning excellent chassis to the bin, cut the balls off the talent of BCV: the result was the Leyland National. In the flar-fung colonies, Unzud wanted Bristol REs but Leyland said “you’ll get the National or nothing” which is why Christchurch got the odd RE chassis with the 0.510 engine. In Oz, by far the biggest fleet of Leopard chassis exported was bought by Sydney UTC (600+ IIRC) and guess what Leyland (Truck & Bus) said when Sydney UTA tried to order more…
And that’s exactly what happened. Sydney UTA bought the Mercedes-Benz O305, again and again and again. And they never looked back.
“Tell ‘im he’s dreamin’ son”
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Would the windscreen incorporate the early version of British air conditioning ?
@ramone That’s the emergency exit,automatic being pre-seatbelt days.
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A fine bus all the same the company long gone now thanks to BL
Some might remember the Harrington Cavalier coach from the 60s. I always thought they were handsome-looking things and you could specify bodies for 28- to 41-seaters. Most (as far as I can tell) were built on AEC running gear. A handful of samples:
One of the many Southdown operated:
One I saw frequently when I was at school:
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I remember those Southdown ones and at the time I considered them as particular elegant examples of an already attractive coach.
I think one was on Carry on Abroad
In a sad and sorry state
Also used in “please sir “
Via AndrewHAs on flickr, an oddity:
West Midlands PTE ran this bus following the 1968 Commercial Motor Show. Nominally a Daimler Fleetline, it came with a highbridge 86-seat body and a Cummins V6 jammed into the right-hand rear. To say they had reliability issues understates the matter.
Were Daimler part of the car company?
The most convenient reference is this wikipedia entry which traces the history of Daimler in Britain after it bought the right to use the name from Gottlieb Daimler and the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft in the early 20th Century.
They had a venture with AEC in the early years but went their seperate ways.
