DSCF3806 Go South Coast (Excelsior) coach at Corfe Castle - 28 Jul 2018

Let me bore you!

Broadly speaking there are two formats of buses and coaches. These are ‘integrals’ and ‘Body on Chassis’.

Once upon a time the British market favoured separate chassis builders with separate body builders. An operator (and its General Manager) would have its preferred choice of each. This could sometimes also apply to the choice of engine manufacturer.

Companies like AEC, Guy, Leyland etc would build the chassis and companies like East Lancs, Northern Counties, Roe, Metro-Cammell Weymann (MCW) etc would build the bodywork.

In your locality of Queensbury the buses of municipalities Bradford and Halifax together with those of Hebble Motor Services were once seen. In the 1960s Bradford mainly chose MCW bodied AECs but when the rear engine models became available they bought both the Daimler Fleetline and Leyland Atlantean with bodywork by either MCW or Alexander. Halifax had a number of different mixes. Hebble liked AEC chassis which had bodywork by Northern Counties, MCW and Weymann.

As the industry evolved with mergers, acquisitions and changing trends there are fewer options today. The giants like Volvo and Scania offer integral vehicles – that is to say they build a body shell into which the mechanical running components are integrated. Thus just one rather than two suppliers.

The main UK builders today are Wrightbus in Northern Ireland and Alexander Dennis in England/Scotland that still build separate bodywork on traditional chassis made by Volvo and Scania whilst at the same time also building their own integral models. Alexander Dennis had its origins as Walter Alexander Coachbuilders of Falkirk and Dennis Commercial Vehicles of Guildford.

Coaches generally follow the same lines. British built coaches have generally followed the body on chassis format but the integral style models, which have been popular in Europe for far longer, have now become more widely accepted as a result of globalised markets.