History of the Leyland Bus E-Book

Ron Phillips

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 324

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A superbly illustrated history of the Leyland bus, one of the most important British buses of the twentieth century, with full production histories and technical specifications for all the major models. Also covers the evolution of the Leyland Bus company, and tells the full story behind the iconic Leyland badge. Including some previously unseen illustrations, the book gives a full company history - from beginnings as the Lancashire Steam Motor Company in 1886, to the acquisition by Volvo Buses in 1988. Technical details of all the main models are given including the Lion, Titan and Olympic ranges. Gearless buses and rear-engined double-deckers are covered as well as charabancs, trolleybuses, First World War military vehicles and overseas models. This will be an essential guide to these much-treasured vehicles and is beautifully illustrated with some never-before-seen pictures from the Leyland company's archives including 153 black & white photographs and 106 colour and b&w prints.

Leseprobe

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2015 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2015

© Ron Phillips 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmittedin any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 878 3

Acknowledgements

All photographs are from the collection of the British Commercial Vehicle Museum,Leyland PR25 2LE, unless otherwise indicated. Those marked ‘HK COLLECTION’are from a set of photographs obtained in the 1990s from local photographersin Hong Kong when research was undertaken into the bus fleets of Hong Kong,Singapore and other areas in the Far East.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

EARLY DAYS

Chapter 2

LOW-FRAME BUS CHASSIS

Chapter 3

THE ALL-CONQUERING TITAN RANGE

Chapter 4

THE EVOLUTION OF THE T SERIES

Chapter 5

DEVELOPMENT TO THE END OF WORLD WAR II

Chapter 6

THE NEW POST-WAR MODELS

Chapter 7

THE NEW STYLE SINGLE-DECKERS

Chapter 8

THE REAR-ENGINED DOUBLE-DECKER

Chapter 9

INTO THE MOTORWAY ERA WITH NEW SINGLE-DECKERS

Chapter 10

THE INTEGRAL LEYLAND-NATIONAL

Chapter 11

NEW ATLANTEANS AND THE NEW TITAN

Chapter 12

OVERSEAS MODELS AND DEVELOPMENTS

Chapter 13

MORE NEW IDEAS OVERTAKEN BY EVENTS

Appendix I

MUNICIPAL BUS UNDERTAKINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN

Appendix II

REGIONAL BUS COMPANY UNDERTAKINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN

Appendix III

MAJOR BUS MANUFACTURERS OF GREAT BRITAIN

Index

INTRODUCTION

It was the railways that brought mobility to Britain from 1830 and by 1900 it was municipally owned tramways that had brought internal mobility to most of our towns and cities. After World War I, the motor bus began to offer a network of routes across the countryside and, in many cases, took over town services from the trams. By 1930, the bus industry, with some financial support from the railways, had formed itself into regional companies.

It was in this scenario that the Lancashire-based company of Leyland Motors found great prosperity. With outstanding designs like the Lion and the Titan, Leyland came to dominate the bus manufacturing industry. In the decades after World War II, it gained control of most of the other British bus manufacturers and by 1968 the company held a commanding position within the bus and truck industry.

The rise in car ownership, the arrival in Britain of European trucks and buses, the decline of the passenger transport industry and political and labour relations issues subsequently led to the fall of a once giant company. In 1988, the bus building business was sold to a foreign competitor and mostly closed down.

This book charts the development of the Leyland-built bus from tentative beginnings in 1906, through the golden age of the 1930s and 1940s, to the time when ‘Leyland’ appeared on the front of most buses, whether built at Leyland or not. The text chronicles chassis built at Leyland, but does not exhaustively deal with chassis built in other factories but bearing the ‘Leyland’ badge.

There are many references to quantities of buses built. Care has been taken to be exact, but discrepancies are inevitable given that certain chassis built as prototypes by the company were later broken up, certain orders placed may have been altered or cancelled, and chassis-build sequences often contain unused numbers.

Chapter 1

EARLY DAYS

Starting by building steam-driven vehicles, the Lancashire Steam Motor Company was renamed Leyland Motors Ltd as its business diversified. By 1908, it was building its own petrol-driven engines to power its chassis, which could be adapted for buses or goods carriers. World War I brought the opportunity to mass-produce military chassis and to forge a reputation for strength and reliability.

FROM MOWERS TO LONDON BUSES

The origins of Leyland Motors go back to sometime in 1884, when a steam wagon was built to carry goods (coal and the like) by James Sumner, the owner of an engineering workshop in the village of Leyland, near Preston in Lancashire. Because of the legislation in those days regulating the speed of mechanically driven vehicles to 4mph (6.4km/h), it was felt that any further development of the steam wagon would be futile. The skills available were therefore directed towards building steam-driven mowing machines for playing fields and open spaces. These are often referred to as ‘steam lawn mowers’, but this suggests a device used on domestic lawns. These machines were quite large and intended to cut the grass of playing fields. They were guided by one man on foot, and their success was based on the fact that horses were no longer needed to pull the mower, nor were men needed to care for the horses.

In 1896, the company was refinanced and once again took up the building of steam-driven goods vehicles. James Sumner was joined by Henry Spurrier and the name of the enterprise became the Lancashire Steam Motor Company. The repeal of the ‘Red Flag Act’ allowed the expansion of mechanical transport to flourish now that vehicles no longer required a man walking in front of them. The company quickly established itself as a builder of well-engineered steam wagons. In 1903, an Act of Parliament (the Motor Car Act) allowed for higher speeds and set up the system of registration. A little later, rules were put in place that regulated the construction and use of road vehicles.

The first vehicle built at Leyland driven by a petrol engine took to the road in 1904, a 30cwt (1,524kg) lorry nicknamed ‘The Pig’. There followed a new, improved version, model Y, which was made 1905–6 and which could be used as the basis for a bus or charabanc. In those days, the customer would explain his needs directly to the manufacturer, who would then build a more or less bespoke vehicle. So the few early single-deck buses, or charabancs, had various styles and makes of bodywork mounted on what was essentially a lorry chassis. The bodies on these early vehicles were not made at Leyland, but were contracted out to the United Electric Car Company (tramcar builders at Preston), or others. Leyland did not build its own bus bodies until about 1912.

Double-deck buses generally followed the style adopted in London, for a number of reasons. First, the bus fleet in London was the largest in the world. It had begun in earnest in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, and by 1905 there were thousands of horse-drawn buses milling about the capital’s streets. The motor bus promised huge savings in operating costs. A double-deck body with similar features to the horse bus, with seating for about sixteen inside and eighteen on top, was quickly evolved by the local coachbuilders, who also had to comply with rules laid down by the Metropolitan Police. Customers for the products of the Lancashire Steam Motor Company generally came from the north-west of England, but Leyland saw a huge potential for sales of buses in London.

There was a flurry of activity in London in 1905–7, when attempts were made to set up motor omnibus companies to provide an alternative to the horse bus. Numerous chassis manufacturers were involved. The Lancashire Steam Motor Co., not yet formally renamed as Leyland, sent down about twenty examples of the Y type chassis to the capital. As the company had not yet evolved a suitable engine of its own, these vehicles were fitted with Crossley engines, built in Manchester. The Y type chassis became known as ‘Leyland-Crossleys’, the first time the name of the Lancashire town had been directly applied to the vehicles made there.

In common with most of the competitors, the Y types were a failure for numerous reasons and did not last long. The outcome of this struggle to replace the costly horse bus was that the Vanguard and London General omnibus companies got together to build a bus chassis themselves to their own requirements, resulting in the foundation in 1912 of the Associated Equipment Company (usually referred to as the AEC). The AEC built buses in some numbers exclusively for the London General at a factory in Walthamstow, northeast London. Over the next five decades, AEC would become Leyland’s strongest competitor, both at home and abroad, until it was bought out by Leyland in 1962.

First product – a steam-driven mowing machine.

In 1907, the company changed its name officially to Leyland Motors Limited. Extensions to the factory were made, so that new machinery could be installed and bodywork could be manufactured. A new engine was developed and was installed in a new chassis (the X type), first shown at the Olympia Show in 1907. This 6-litre unit had 4 cylinders and was rated at 35 horsepower. Another innovation at this period was the introduction of a 4-speed gearbox by adding direct drive as the 4th gear. The new engine was produced in various capacities as the range of Leyland models increased. These were denoted by backwards progression through the alphabet – Y, X, W, V, U, T and S – and were distinguished by the tonnage (or payload) for which they were designed. Leyland did not give up on selling buses to London and the X type was a success, but once the AEC had been established, it could only sell to the smaller (independent) companies, whose activities were somewhat hampered by the influence of the General.

An early charabanc with fixed roof and inclined floor stands outside the Leyland factories under the admiring gaze of some of the workers. B 2063 shows a Lancashire CC registration obtained by the makers, the Lancashire Steam Motor Company, whose oval plate features on the radiator. Early charabancs were used for pleasure outings and often carried names, in this case ‘Swiftsure’.

More bystanders gaze on a newfangled Leyland X type double-deck motor bus of the London Central Motor Omnibus Company (LN 7271). The uniformed policeman is symbolic of the fact that the Metropolitan Police had much to do with the regulation of the early omnibuses. The lack of uniform on the driver and conductor show that the New Central was a recently formed enterprise. Note that the passengers are all middle class, as at this time public transport had not yet become affordable for ordinary people. Evidence of horse-drawn traffic can be seen in the road.

PRE-WORLD WAR I BUSES

The Leyland reputation for reliability and sound engineering soon spread and from 1910–14 vehicles were being sold in many parts of the country, as well as a few places abroad. For example, the British-owned tramway companies at Cape Town and Lisbon each took charabancs with Leyland-built covered bodies. Many tramway undertakings began to experiment with buses on routes to feed their lines and the British Electric Traction Co. (BET) began thinking of establishing networks of bus routes rather than tramways. It was the BET that was to place the first block order for fifty buses for use at Barnsley, Kidderminster and Worcester, towns where the company wished to expand beyond the confines of its existing tram tracks. The placing of block orders was to continue from the 1920s until the 1960s, with Leyland usually benefiting from an annual large order for chassis that would be spread among member companies in the group. BET also established bus services away from places where it had tramways through a subsidiary, the British Automobile Traction Co.

Leyland even entered the tramway field, by building four petrol-driven trams for Morecambe and several for use abroad. These cars had an engine and radiator at one end like a bus, with a duplicate set of controls at the other end. There was also a petrol railcar for South Africa, but it was to be the 1930s before the company took a serious interest in this form of passenger transport. Subsequently, the joint AEC and Leyland enterprise British United Traction contributed to the British Railways modernization plan in the 1950s and 1960s, with large numbers of engines, transmissions and control gear for use in railway cars.

Leyland Motors built four petrol-driven tramcars for use at Morecambe, to run from Battery Inn to Heysham. There were three enclosed cars and one open one, built 1911–13 on under-frames by the United Electric Car Co. of Preston, which also built the bodies. There was an engine at one end, with duplicate controls at the other. The service ceased in 1924. These cars and a small number exported were the precursors of the Leyland railcars of the 1930s. PICTURE POSTCARD

A Leyland model-U chassis fitted with a body by the United Electric Car Co., Preston, for Todmorden Corporation. Early buses for the provinces followed the London pattern.

An early roofed ‘toast-rack’ body, probably also by UEC under contract to Leyland Motors, for export to the British-owned tramway in Lisbon. This was for serving feeder routes to tram services and is open in deference to the local climate (many of the Lisbon trams were of the ‘toast-rack’ type). New in 1912, its official description was ‘char-a-banc with fixed canopy and back’.

An early enclosed single-deck bus, built for export to Cape Town. Passengers entered by a central door in the back. Simple timber bodywork of this type was commonplace on small vehicles in sunny climates, but bodies to withstand the British climate were usually more substantial.

Up to 1914 and beyond, there was no real distinction between bus and lorry chassis. Some vehicles were even provided with two bodies, allowing the owner to change between carrying goods or carrying passengers according to the traffic on offer. When the 1914–18 war began, the military authorities commandeered many bus chassis for war purposes, but the bus bodies remained with their owners and were fitted on other chassis during or after the hostilities. Some complete buses were used by the army to transport troops to the front in western France. These were AEC buses taken from London. In the provinces at the time, the buses and charabancs were too diverse to be of use to the armed forces as buses, as they required standard types. Therefore, while Leyland bus chassis were commandeered because they had much in common with Leyland lorries, some other makes of buses were not taken because their chassis were not of a suitable type for the battlefields.

CHARABANCS

There will be numerous references in the following pages to charabancs, a type of motor bus current from about 1905 into the 1920s, and not really dying out until the early 1930s. The proprietors of a certain English Dictionary published a new edition of their work a few years ago and declared a list of words they deemed to be out of date and no longer to be included. Amongst them was ‘charabanc’. This seems a short-sighted decision, as the word refers to a particular type of vehicle that may no longer be made, but which lives on in family photograph albums and seaside picture postcards from the past. Another English dictionary defines ‘charabanc’ as ‘a long vehicle with many seats looking forward, for holiday makers’. This definition makes the point that charabancs were for pleasure riding and not a form of public transport between places.

The word originates with the country hay carts adapted to carry villagers to the market or country fair by placing wooden benches across the body. In French, the word for a large cart is ‘char’ and for bench is ‘banc’. Put together, these form ‘char à bancs’ (singular) or ‘chars à bancs’ (plural). The correct French forms are rarely seen in English, which settled for ‘charabanc’, or often the vernacular form ‘chara’. In this book the anglicized form ‘charabanc’ will be used.

When applied to motorized vehicles, the word denotes a type of body with rudimentary sides and no side windows, with cross seating usually for five at a time and no roof except for a retractable canvas hood. Some charabancs in hot climates had a fixed roof to act as a sunshade. From about 1913, charabancs were coach-built with a series of doors on the nearside, each door leading to a row of seats. These smooth-sided bodies gained the name ‘torpedo charabancs’.

In their final form, charabanc bodies gained glass wind-up side windows. Their hooded roofs evolved into the sliding roofs on motor coaches. Many of the joys of being driven through the countryside in the open air can be experienced today in a cabriolet sports car. Shown here is a scene from Blackpool of the Big Wheel (long gone) and a line of Leyland charabancs. It was used on the cover of the Leyland house magazine, Leyland Torque, just after World War I had ended. Here, the coach proprietor advertises his motor tours using the French form of the word incorrectly: ‘Blackhurst motor chars a banc leaves daily to all parts.’

‘Blackhurst motor chars a banc leaves daily to all parts’, from the cover of Leyland Torque.

The holidaymakers smile at the camera while the driver looks on self-consciously in the days before World War I. The charabanc of White Rose Buses of Rhyl is about to set off from the Promenade on an excursion. The Leyland ST type chassis was widely used for charabancs, single-deck buses and even double-deck buses (in London in particular).

The pre -World War I charabanc of White Rose Buses may be compared to this extreme example with the most basic bodywork on an ex-military chassis, put in service at Scarborough just after the war. The body is literally just benches mounted on to a lorry chassis. It represents the start of the Scarborough sea-front services in open buses, which still run to this day. The passengers seem to be enjoying the ride in this crude vehicle.

THE ‘RAF’ TYPES

During World War I, Leyland was a major manufacturer of motor transport to the War Office. The chief products were ‘War Office Subsidy model Class A, 3ton’ and a similar 4-ton machine, which later became known as the ‘RAF’ model. The majority of the lorries built were not for the Royal Air Force, which was only formed towards the end of the conflict as aviation was developed as an instrument of war. However, the flying arm of the armed services, previously known as the Royal Flying Corps, was separated into an autonomous unit (the RAF) and set up many ‘airfields’ in France from which to attack the enemy. The aircraft of the day required constant maintenance and to this end each squadron was supplied with mobile workshops mounted on the back of army lorries. These lorries would drive to find a suitable ‘airfield’ from which the aircraft could fly. Hence the vehicles became known as the ‘RAF’ type, both by those associated with it and the company itself.

Many men in the British Army were taught how to drive during the 1914–18 conflict. After the war, they used their new skill to earn a living. Army vehicles of all types were available as ‘war surplus stock’. Leyland made the decision to buy back vehicles of Leyland make, recondition them and sell them to the British market, or to export them to certain countries in the British Empire where Leyland opened depots. This was the beginning of the export business that Leyland was to build up worldwide. The depots in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada developed into assembly factories in the 1950s, to which buses and lorries were exported in CKD (completely knocked-down) form for final assembly. Depots or agencies were also opened in other countries at this time, notably South America and India.

The RAF subsidy 3-ton truck, here seen when new and lettered for the War Department (WD) and marked ‘load not to exceed 3 tons’. Troops were often carried by these vehicles, upon which all sorts of bodies were fitted. In this case, note the opening door and separate canvas cover of an entrance to allow personnel to climb into the body.

Here is a reconstructed RAF 4-ton truck seen in ‘battlefield mud’ after the war was over. The way the body is mounted on the chassis above the level of the wheel arches is clearly seen, allowing for an unobstructed deck for load carrying. If used for a bus, the body would rest on the chassis, with the wheel arches protruding into the body floor. This picture shows how easily a body could be dismounted. Most Leylands used as buses in this period were fitted with a scuttle (dash) behind the engine and did not have the tapered front profile as seen here.

The factory at Ham, Kingston-upon-Thames, had begun life as ‘The Number 1 Aircraft Factory’ and was purchased by Leyland in 1920. Whilst the Kingston-upon-Thames factory supplied the British and world markets with an ample supply of refurbished chassis, ex-servicemen who could afford one deployed these vehicles in several ways: as a lorry, as a bus, or as both. By having two bodies available, a vehicle used as lorry in the week could be transformed into a charabanc at the weekend. Equally, a summer charabanc could be a winter removals van. This was possible, of course, because there were no chassis built specifically for buses at that time. The factory at Leyland resumed peacetime production in competition, as it were, with Kingston-upon-Thames. By now, the company had acquired new factory premises at Chorley, several miles from Leyland, which had been used for war work. It became the repair depot and spare parts warehouse for Leyland, as well as the fire-engine building unit from 1920 to 1942. Bus chassis and fire-engine chassis were no more than modified goods vehicles fitted with the company’s own designs of body until about 1925.

AFTER WORLD WAR I

In 1919, the Leyland business was financially restructured. New models, based very much on what had gone before, were announced. The products were revealed in a series of ‘Data Sheets’ produced periodically and a publicity department was formed. In general, a Leyland vehicle at this time had a driving position behind the engine (known as normal control); front wheels were smaller than rear wheels and were shod with solid rubber bands; and shelter from the elements for drivers was rudimentary (cab roofs and windscreens were not always provided). New models were being advertised alongside the ‘RAF’ reconditioned military chassis. Not all models in the catalogue were necessarily built, while some models were bespoke by particular clients and were not marketed to other customers.

The letters used to distinguish the different models, having previously reached N from Z in reverse order, were now issued forwards from A, starting with the lightest. The A range was rated at 2 tons, and was used as a basis for small capacitybuses. The C range was larger and could be used for a bus to take up to twenty-eight passengers. A few double-deck buses were built, but these generally used the same chassis as single-deck models, with a few alterations to cope with the extra weight.

From 1920 onwards, pneumatic tyres became an option on lighter models of buses and charabancs. Such tyres were not yet very reliable, partly due to the poor state of the roads, which outside towns were often still not tarred, and many owners were content to keep to solid tyres. These were, of course, bands of solid rubber pressed on to a wooden or steel wheel. The tyre companies gradually improved the quality of pneumatics over the decade, until by 1931 the Government insisted upon the use of pneumatic tyres except on the very heaviest of load carriers.

THE SIDE-CABBED BUSES, 1922–5

Bus operators and manufacturers realized that extra seating capacity would be gained by moving the driving position from behind the engine to the side of the engine. This had been done by AEC for London in 1919 and Leyland redesigned the G type chassis in response to the demand. Between 1922–5, a series of models in the SG (side type G) range was produced and established the side-cab (or half-cab) layout that would become normal for buses on British roads for the next forty years. At the same time, Leyland first established a set of loyal customers which, in some cases, would go on to buy no other make of bus.

A loyal customer from an earlier period was Todmorden Corporation, which took eleven full-fronted side types (mainly SG2 and SG4) in 1923–5. These were open top double-deckers and like many SGs had a full-width cab. The full advantages of the half-cab were not recognized at first. These turned out to be better cooling for the engine, dispersal of noise outside the saloon body of the bus, easier access for mechanical attention to the engine and improved visibility of the kerbside for the driver. It must be said, however, that buses often stopped several feet from the kerb in those early days of meagre traffic on the highway. Stepping into the highway to board a tramcar or bus was not as hazardous in those days as it would be today.

The majority of SGs were single-deck. What few were double-deck were simply a single-deck body with a staircase and rows of seats on the roof; all such were open toppers. Regular customers established during the currency of these models were Crosville, Ribble, Cumberland, United Counties, Barnsley & District (later Yorkshire Traction), Maidstone & District and Yorkshire Woollen District amongst the emerging regional bus companies. Municipalities drawn to the Leyland marque in the early 1920s included Sheffield, Preston, Birkenhead, Warrington and Rawtenstall. Although seen through modern eyes the SG was far from being the ideal bus, it endeared itself to those customers because it was robust and reliable, attributes which Leyland was able to maintain in future models

A post-World War I charabanc, similar to those often found on ex-War Department chassis. The ‘scuttle’ behind the engine supports a windscreen that may be folded down. The canvas roof is supported on flimsy-looking metal struts, which can be stowed away when the canopy is not required. Passengers step up on running boards and enter by one of the seven doors leading to the leather-covered seats. The vehicle seen here weighed about 4.5tons (4,572kg).

White Rose Motor Services (Brookes Bros of Rhyl) ran a fleet of SG types similar to those supplied to the Crosville Motor Company, by whom White Rose was later taken over. DM 5284 is seen when new on solid tyres. A similar vehicle has been restored and preserved by Mike Sutcliffe of the Leyland Society. The height of the chassis frame means that a passenger has to climb four steps to reach saloon height.

An Altrincham & District Leyland SG9 with a Leyland-built half-cab body. This pneumatically shod SG type of 1925 represents the midpoint of the transition from the White Rose (above) to the Lion LSC. The body on the 4-ton-derived SG had forty seats; the replacement LSC had 25 per cent less at first, on a 3-ton chassis. Note the dual-mode lighting, acetylene side lamps and electric (dipping) head lamps. Depicted is A&D No.33 or No.34 (MB 7751/99).

Many of these buses carried bodywork constructed by the Leyland body shops, which built bus bodies as well as lorries and vans. There were numerous variations and the bus body styles were often named after a principal customer. Examples are ‘Ribble’, ‘Crosville’ and ‘Cumberland’ on SG chassis. Other body builders like Beadle, Brush, Dodson, Ransomes, Strachan & Brown and English Electric also provided bodywork on Leyland chassis in the 1920–5 period, and their products were very similar to those made by Leyland, or exactly to Leyland design. All were built with timber frames and continued the practices used in the horse bus and tramcar industries, except for the increasing use of sheet metal exterior panels.

Chapter 2

LOW-FRAME BUS CHASSIS

As bus services spread across Britain, Leyland Motors produced its first and very successful low-frame bus chassis and bodies.

THE LION LSC, 1925–9

In 1925–6 a new range of chassis intended solely for passenger carrying was developed by Leyland from the previous SG models. The latter were essentially goods models with a straight chassis; the new models would have a cranked chassis to allow a lower floor level. In introducing such a range Leyland lagged behind some of its competitors by a few years, but what the company was about to do would transform the industry. This is where the story of the Leyland bus really begins. Hitherto, buses had been just one type of vehicle that used the Leyland chassis, but from this point on passenger chassis became distinct from goods chassis. While the engines, gearboxes, brakes and so on could be shared with lorries, tankers and vans, the chassis became specialized.

For the first time, each bus model was given a name, for example, Lion. The Lion also bore a type code, LSC (L series, side-control, C – that is, 3-ton range). It was to be the class leader. Other bus models in the range also bore names commencing with L and had code letters in line with Leyland’s existing practice:

The letters A, C and G represent the tonnage range that the chassis and engine could handle and these were also used for the goods vehicle class letters.

The name Lion first appeared when Leyland had produced a high-performance motor car after World War I. The press referred to the Leyland Eight touring car as ‘the Lion of Olympia’. This title no doubt impressed the Leyland publicity department, who then coined further animal titles for the new passenger range, including Leviathan for the rather ungainly double-decker. The contemporary arrival of suitable pneumatic tyres for most of the new passenger range meant that the letter P (supposedly denoting pneumatic) was briefly added to certain of the code letters, for example PLSC1. In fact, the letter P denoted ‘passenger’, as the company wished to distinguish certain models from their goods counterparts. Throughout the period of manufacture (1926–9) and long afterwards, the P was perpetuated by non-company sources. Bearing in mind that none of the L series buses was ever mounted on solid tyres apart from the Leviathans, it is clear that the use of the letter P for pneumatic was unnecessary in any case.

The LC1 and LSC1 and subsequent variants shared the same chassis number sequence, starting at 45001, and shared major mechanical components, too. The Lioness LC1 was popular as the basis for a charabanc or a covered coach and also a 26-seat bus that could be operated with one man (driver/conductor). Leyland designed and built bodies for both LC1 and LSC1 models. The practice of naming bus body designs after a major customer died away about this time as the company tried to create a standard design to suit each chassis and named the body after the chassis. Thus a ‘Lion’ body on a Lion chassis and later a ‘Titan’ body on a Titan chassis.

After a while, late in 1926, a longer version of the LSC was introduced, with a wheelbase of 16ft 5in (5,004mm). This was the LSC3; it allowed for another row of seats and therefore a seating capacity of thirty-four or thirty-five persons. This took away the need for the Leopard LSG2, of which only two examples were built for Liverpool Corporation in 1926. This model was in fact a G-class chassis using the same engine as the Leviathan and with a capacity of thirty-eight.

The Lion LSC1 and LSC3 were a runaway success, with more than 3,000 examples being built in just over three years. This was by far Leyland’s most successful product to date. The RAF chassis had been built in large numbers for the War Office, but the Lions were sold to diverse customers and many were fitted with Leyland bodywork, so profits were high. The demand was so great that many Lions had the bodywork built to the Leyland design by subcontractors such as Vickers.

LION LSC1 AND LSC3, 1926–9 SPECIFICATION

Engine: 4-cylinder petrol

Capacity: 5.1 litres

Length:

LSC1 25ft (7,620mm)

LSC3 27ft 6in (8,382mm)

Width: 7ft 6in (2,286mm)

Wheelbase:

LSC1 14ft 6in (4,420mm)

LSC3 16ft 5in (5,004mm)

Gearbox: 4-speed sliding mesh

Rear axle: spiral bevel

Suspension: leaf springs

Leyland Lion LSC types with Leyland bodywork were in service with many British companies and municipalities. This is a 1928 Wigan Corporation example, No.7 (EK 6281), and typically for its time carries a ‘Corporation Tramways’ title. Note the three steps from street to saloon.

Waiting for passengers in the sun is a ‘short Lion’ LSC1 in service in South Africa with Kenwyn Bus Service of Cape Town. Although the new Lion range was designed to be low, this view emphasizes that the height from the ground was not low by today’s standards. The locally built body has a French look, with its unusually large windows.

The Lion chassis could well outlive the timber bodywork that was originally fitted. Crosville Motor Services embarked on a rebodying programme in 1935–6, when Eastern Coach Works equipped over 100 LSC Lions with new 30- or 34-seat bodywork, which extended the lives of the chassis by twelve years or more. Depicted is Crosville A12 when newly refurbished, showing the effect produced by a well-rounded modern body with deep side panels.

THE LIONESS LC1

The Lioness was a very elegant machine and at its best was somewhat like a long, low saloon car. The radiator was positioned over the front axle and the driver sat behind a scuttle in a similar position to the driver on a contemporary high-performance coupé. The engine, however, was the same 4-cylinder unit as the Lion LSC, whose power would be described as ‘adequate’ rather than ‘outstanding’ in this application.

His Majesty King George V purchased a Lioness LC1 as a shooting brake for use on the royal estates. Registered YT 3738, it later became a touring coach in Jersey after the bodywork was modified. The significance of this vehicle and an earlier ‘luggage van’ is that by their sale Leyland gained the right to display the royal coat of arms on its products. Suitable badges were produced, declaring ‘by Appointment to His Majesty the King’ and were mounted on the radiators of both buses and lorries. The once-royal vehicle still exists and is currently on display at the British Commercial Vehicle Museum, housed at Leyland in a part of the old factory.

Leyland produced its own design of bus body and enclosed coach body for the Lioness, but subcontracted certain designs of charabanc to others. Amongst these was the QP (quadruple purpose) design of charabanc that could be set up in one of four ways: fully open with hood down; fully enclosed; hood down, but windows up to shelter from the wind; or windows down, but hood up to shelter from sun. Compared to earlier charabancs, the LC1 was low and easy to access. Its disadvantage was a small seating capacity, although this could be offset by the premium prices paid for luxury travel in a vehicle whose driver was seated in with the passengers and with whom he could interact.

The mechanical parts of the Lioness closely followed those of the LSC. The latter was little used as a coach, but eventually the side-cabbed Tiger did attract some of the coaching business. Nevertheless, the Lioness-bonneted model in upgraded form survived well into the 1930s, partly because of its customer appeal, and was redesigned as the LTB1.

LIONESS LC1, 1926–9 SPECIFICATION

Engine: 4-cylinder petrol

Capacity: 5.1 litres

Length: 26ft (7,925mm)

Width: 7ft 6in (2,286mm)

Wheelbase: 17ft (5,182mm)

Gearbox: 4-speed sliding mesh

Rear axle: spiral bevel

Suspension: leaf springs

York Corporation No.3 (DN 4730) is an A1 with a Leyland 30-seat body of 1923, seen standing in front of York Minster. Compare it with the Lioness of only three years later, low and elegant on pneumatic tyres.

A brand new Lioness LC1 for Blackpool Corporation (No.24, FR 7430) with an attractive Leyland 25-seat body stands next to an earlier Leyland-bodied single-deck bus (TD 6260) to illustrate the difference in chassis height and passenger accessibility of the new bus range from the older models.

This is not in America, but in Britain! A 26-seat Lioness LC1, DO 6369 of Smith’s Safesure Services of Boston, Lincolnshire, one of four Leylands purchased in 1927 by that company. It is clear to see that the Lioness was one of the most elegant motor buses of its time.

THE OTHER L TYPES, 1926–9

Leviathan LG

The biggest, heaviest and only one of the new bus models to use solid tyres was the Leviathan double-decker. Because pneumatic tyres were not yet sturdy enough to support heavy vehicles, double-deck motor buses and trolleybuses in 1925 were still built on solid wheels that could badly damage roads. By 1927, suitable pneumatics had become available and the final versions of the Leviathan (type LSP) were built on such tyres. Many operators subsequently converted the wheels of their vehicles, often changing the front wheels first. After the 1930 Road Traffic Act, buses on solid tyres were prohibited. Such was the progress in tyre technology!

Compared with the Lion, not very many Leviathans were built. Customers for this model were from populous districts such as Birkenhead, Bolton, Manchester and Warrington. Crosville also had some for service at Birkenhead and in the Wirral. White Rose Motor Services (Brookes Bros of Rhyl) used a small number of Leviathans both as buses and removal vans.

One of the Leveret LA1 demonstrators is seen here on trial in the Lake District. The dimensions of these buses are similar to the later Cub series. Not very many of this type were built, perhaps because the price did not compare favourably with the huge range of cheap little buses on offer in the mid-twenties. Compare the height with the C7 below.

Leveret LA

If the large Leviathan had limited success, the smaller Leveret had even less. It was designed for carrying twenty passengers and was of normal-control layout. It was the successor to the model Z, a similar machine whose 4-cylinder engine was based on half of the engine designed for the Leyland Eight (cylinder) car. The Z had proved unsatisfactory and the Leveret similarly failed to impress. These models probably suffered from the fact that there were numerous much cheaper alternatives available, including Leyland’s own A and C series normal-control chassis, which were robust and simple, or many lightweight chassis of American or European origin, which were ‘cheap and cheerful’.