PT 60 show 7 - a photo on Flickriver

PT 60 show 7
            Passenger Transport had to disrupt neat alphabetical listing of chassis suppliers to make room for the half-tone block of the Ford Thames PSV, launched in 1958 for the 1959 coaching season, the 570E had by the middle of 1960 before this edition went to press sold over 500, thus actually rivalling the Bedford SB, although selling less than half as many: this was the hardest fight for the light coach market Bedford had to face on its home-ground since its inception nearly thirty years before as the General Motors commercial brand for the British Empire. Notably the illustration shows a much cleaner frontal aspect than the bare-chassis SB, with no scuttle metalwork in the way at the front. In contrast with the SB the Thames was about eight inches higher unladen, similarly to the Commer Avenger and as a result the bodied coaches looked rather different. More SBs survive than Thames, but there are Harrington, Burlingham and Duple examples extant.

Leyland Motors are featuring on the other hand an export type, and quite a radical one at that, the Lion PSR1, a cross between the Worldmaster and the Atlantean, with a 34ft nominal bodied length (nearer 36ft actual)and the option of a 200bhp engine and air front suspension. The desire for a North American application for this model is clearly stated in the text. However the US ‘over the road bus’ market preferred constant-mesh transmission, and the markedly less fuel-efficient but unburstable power and North America-wide back-up offered by the General Motors Detroit Deisel 71-series two-stroke. The Iranian Leyland concessionary took most of the 86 PSR1 Lions built over its seven year run, the other major customer being the Western Australian Government Railways. The Leyland Leopard had been quietly introduced the year before and was awaiting its place in the sun.

From 1936 until 1964 The commercial vehicle building subsidiary of The Daimler Company laboured under the back-to-front title Transport Vehicles (Daimler) Ltd. From that year its owner since 1960 Jaguar Cars Ltd altered it to Daimler Transport Vehicles. This was Daimler’s first Commercial Motor Show since the Jaguar take-over (the previous long-term owner had been Birmingham Small Arms Ltd.) and they had recently had a thin time, the mainstream CVG6 not selling as well as before and the small home market demand for the Freeline coach almost drying up. The synchromesh version of the half cab double decker was barely adding volume and the David Brown-sourced gearbox was not without problems. 

However Jaguar’s proprietor William Lyons had the confidence in Daimler’s bus engineers to launch the first true competitor to the Leyland Atlantean, this being the Daimler Fleetline.  The Passenger Transport copy makes clear the advantage the Fleetline has of a dropped-centre rear axle allowing a low-height body with centre gangways throughout both decks. As shown, both Weymann-bodied 7000HP and the show chassis had a 150bhp  Daimler CD6 engine with BSA turbocharger, but all enquirers expressed a preference for a Gardner 6LX powerplant and no further Daimler-powered Fleetlines were built.

© 1960 Passenger Transport reproduced for purposes of scholarship and research.
Taken on: July 29, 2014
Groups appears in: • MANUFACTURES ADVERTS FOR BUSES & COACHES
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