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Albion Motor Car Company Ltd. Scotstoun, Glagow

Albion was established in 1899 in Glasgow, the second city of the Empire, already renowned worldwide for its engineering excellence. Albion’s motto “Sure As The Sunrise” was adapted into the logo which featured on the radiator and badges of their models for many years and helped to establish their identity wherever they operated throughout the world.

http://www.albion-trust.org.uk/index.htm

Austin Motor Company Ltd., car and commercial vehicle manufacturers, Longbridge, founded 1906 by Herbert Austin (formerly the General Manager of Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company Ltd.). The company survived the financial crisis in the 1920s, introducing, the highly successful Seven in 1922, and joining Morris Motors in the British Motor Corporation (BMC), 1952. In 1968, BMC and Leyland merged and from 1970 Austin was part of the Austin-Morris Division of the British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd.

The Bedford story is a relatively simple and succesful one. The American-owned manufacturer, which had been assembling Chevrolets in this country, went one step further and commenced UK production, partly to avoid import duties. It kept the model range simple, sold at competitive prices and used a talented designer. Bedford production began in 1931 and, by 1939, the company claimed that 70% of buses and coaches with less than 26 seats on British roads were Bedfords.

http://www.bedford-world.com/
http://www.fleetdata.co.uk/bedford.html

The Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company (BMMO) played a pre-eminent part in bus and coach design and new technology. Their bus and coach operations were based in the Midlands, and with their bright red livery their mission was to “Paint the Midlands Red” with their fleet. And so they became colloquially known as “Midland Red”.
BMMO was more than just a bus company. They were the only company in the hey-day of British bus transport to design and build their own prototype and production vehicles from the ground up. BMMO which operated under the name “Midland Red” was probably the most significant engineering bus company in the history of British road transport!

Bristol was another of the small band of early motorbus operators which found the chassis it bought to be less than satisfactory and decided as a result to build its own. The company came into being in 1874 as the Bristol Tramways Co and in 1887 was renamed the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Co after a merger. Bristol began building its own chassis and engines in 1908.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davidlloyd/bristolhistory.htm
http://bcv.robsly.com/

B.U.T. was formed in 1946 upon the amalgamation of the trolleybus building activities of both A.E.C & Leyland. It continued production until 1964.

A selection of buses and coaches that have had their lives prolonged by being converted for further use as non-passenger carrying vehicles; from Computerbus to roadside cafés and exhibition vehicles.

Doug Spencer presents his covering of the 4th Annual Chatsworth Preserved Bus Gathering

Chris Stanley and Rob McCaffery were among the crowds at this rally and have very kindly sent us their selection of photographs to record the day.

Commercial Cars Limited began in 1905 after early trials in Clapham, London. Land was quickly acquired in Biscot Road, Luton where the company was to stay almost the next 50 years. A range of truck was quickly established and export market opened before the Great War intervened, with military trucks then taking over. Some 3,000 were to be built until 1919, gaining a reputation for toughness and reliability.

http://www.fleetdata.co.uk/commer.html

The earliest buses were not made by Crossley themselves. After the First World war the government sold off many thousands of surplus vehicles including many Crossleys. Being large vehicles they were eminently suitable for conversion and lots of them were converted to buses and charabancs. Because of the hard life they led few have survived.
The decision, which involved major capital investment, for Crossley Motors themselves to go into full scale bus production came in 1926 with the first model, the single decker Eagle going on loan to Manchester Corporation in 1928. With a wheelbase of 16 feet 7.5 inches it had the 30/70 4 cylinder 5.3 litre petrol engine delivering 70 hp with, unusually for its time, an aluminium cylinder head. The Eagle was said to be good for 50mph at 10mpg. Eighty two were built including two double deckers and a solitary normal control version. Some were bodied by Crossley but others were supplied as chassis only, the bodies being supplied by a large number of coachbuilders as determined by the operators who included private and municipal undertakings.
http://www.crossley-motors.org.uk/history/historyindex.html

Daimler's history of bus production can be traced back to the beginning of this century and a double-decker was built as long ago as 1908. Until the advent of the Fleetline most Daimler bus customers were municipalities. In sharp contrast to the Fleetline's success was the failure of Daimler's only other rear-engined model, the Roadliner.

Dennis Bros., Guildford

http://www.dennisbusowners.co.uk/index.html#anchor270576

In 1911 the British plant for Ford was established in Trafford park, Manchester.
Fords formed the majority of fleets, of the rural operators who ran after World War 1.

1927 High Speed Gas, known otherwise as GB was formed.
1936 GB accquired the Park Royal premises of Gilford which was in receivership and created a subsidiary being Gilfords HSG.
They built one chassis based on a 1935 Gilford that was left in the Park Royal unsold; it was fitted with a modified AEC engine and a HSG gas producer.
Highland Transport bought the bus and it subsequently covered 20,000 miles in 9 months averaging a fuel consumption of 2lb (0.907kg) a mile.

Guy Motors Ltd., Wolverhampton

Guy Motors Ltd. was founded by Sidney Guy in 1913.
http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/Transport/Buses/Guy/guyhistory.htm

These early vehicles had chain drive, four speed gearboxes and Hall built engines.
Hallford provided chassis and engines for Hallford-Stevens petrol-electrics, who were a predecessor of Tillings-Stevens.
1925 the company ceased when wartime production only required lorries.

Classic British Built Buses and Coaches that have seen operation on the Isle of Man. This selection includes some lovely shots of the move of some of the Isle of Man's treasures to their new home at the Jurby Transport Museum thanks to Richard Dodge and John Davis.

Leyland Motors, Leyland, Lancashire

The first Leyland bus is believed to have been delivered to the Dundee Motor Omnibus Co in 1900.
http://www.madeinpreston.co.uk/Road/leylandinfo.html

Phil Rawlings attended and recorded this event and shares his photographs with us here.

10th Annual Leyland Gathering at Crich Tramway Museum - 13th July 2008

Weymann’s Motor Bodies (1925) limited was formed in 1925 at Addlestone to manufacture a new type of motor car and later motor coach body consisting of a light and flexible metal jointed wooden frame covered with leather cloth which became very popular but in its final development metal panels replaced the fabric covering.
In 1932 Metropolitan-Cammell Weymann was set up as a joint sales organisation after the two manufacturing companies had agreed to pool their body building resources, bus body building having been introduced at Metro-Cammell in 1929.
In 1963 Weymann’s were bought out and all production was concentrated at MCW in Birmingham. Metro Cammell Weymann (MCW) provided an impressive presentation with a series of variants of the highly successful Metrobus. Sadly, as became an all-too-familiar story within the bus industry following deregulation in 1986, the fragmented market for double-deck buses saw too many manufacturers chasing too few orders by which to maintain production. Regrettably for MCW, with few other product portfolios available, the last Metrobus left the company’s Washwood Heath premises in late 1989 and the factory closed its doors for the last time. The Metrobus is a disappearing breed of bus the last of the Birmingham built buses still on the road in 2007.

The buses were of Anglo-Swedish manufacture. The Swedish Scania engine and chassis were fitted with dual entrance, one man operated bodies built in Britain under licence by Metro-Cammell of Birmingham.

• In 1924 William Morris started building commercial vehicles.
• The T, TX and Z types were bought for bus use.
• 1930 the first purpose built chassis was firstly a six-cylinder engined Viceroy or known as Y type and the Dictator the H type.
• 1932 the relatively unsuccessful double-decker called the Imperial arrived, only 80 were built in two years.
• Birmingham Corporation took 50 of this number and the rest were acquired by East Kent.
• 1938 a new single decker based on the Equi-load truck arrived.
• 1948 the 32-seater Morris-Commercial coach was introduced.
• A forward-control model with a four-speed manual gearbox.
• During the early 1960's the J2 was launched in Austin and Morris forms as a minibus.

Peter Esposito was there to record the day's events and kindly shares his photos with us via his cousin Chris Stanley.

Sunbeam was born when John Marston, a manufacturer of tin plate and Japan ware produced the first Sunbeam bicycle in 1887. Later cars and motorcycles were produced. In 1931 Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles was formed and their standard six-wheeled chassis, made at Moorfield Road works was built into a trolley bus. This was an immediate success, large numbers were produced and Sunbeam eventually became one of the world's leading bus chassis manufacturers.
http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/Transport/Buses/Sunbeam.htm

Not really Buses or Coaches but Road Passenger Carrying Vehicles nevertheless and worthy of inclusion here