bird's eye
Page 35
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I Exportabus
le letter in CM on June 23 about bus larding times in the Far East achieved the China Motor Bus Co has drawn an teresting response from Brian Wholey, director of Leydon Trading Co Ltd, of 3ttingdean.
It seems his company was not only sponsible for the sale of the pictured :yland PD3/4 (ex-Southdown) but in two ars has supplied 42 retired UK buses to 'erseas operators — mostly to China Motor Is in Hong Kong, and has about 15 more ling through its hands just now. It's a owing business.
Mr Wholey and his colleague Don Ayres Ii me they have long experience of overseas arketing, and started handling used buses r export when China Motor Bus needed augment its large Guy fleet. They sent out I ex-Southdown Arab Mk 1Vs, but because ,00d Guys" were drying up, they also took look at the possibility of rounding up ime exportable used Leylands. Hence the MB PD3/4s, which have aPparently not tly achieved excellent boarding times ;spite not being designed as o-m-o vehicles It have also found ready driver acceptance a fleet formerly committed to semiatomatics or preselectors.
I Status symbols
eet engineers in some large companies we a hard time finding garages to service e exotic European cars imported as status :mbols by senior executives. Maintaining the lative pecking order of directors and lower :helons is also a problem.
The chairman of one company has his ghts on a new 12-cylinder Jag. This gaffer, ho now runs a 4.2 Jag, encouraged his low directors to limit their business cars 2.8-litre Jags. My fleet engineer friend :ckons that when the chairman promotes .mself to a 5.2-litre car his colleagues will amediately insist on 4.2 Jags.
I know one firm running a Citroen DB2 lted with extras worth £2000 —including conference table! Decision-making with Diu back to the traffic at 100 plus is quite a experience, they say.
I The champions
lay back on March 19 business organiz.ions entered a competition by post. It was business game devised by the University of ussex and attracted teams from industry, ie Services, Government departments and usiness consultancies. Six teams went into ie final representing BP Ltd, London; tkins Planning; Transport and Road .esearch Laboratory British Nuclear Fuels; Miles Druce; and the eventual winners, S.P.D. Ltd.
S.P.D. came from well down the field but eventually beat Atkins and BP on the run in. Sidney Gould, the team captain said: "Perhaps we did so well because our job is analysing and solving other people's distribution problems."
• Milk run
Keith Rathbone, the assistant manager at the CWS Milk department in Bradford, 'phoned to thank us this week, after he learned that he had won the Stanley Clifford Management Award which qualified him for a trip to Sweden. The Award is competed for by managers aged 20 to 30 in the dairy industry who submit papers on some aspects of management. Keith chose Sweden and knowing how up to date we always are with these things — well we went out there with the Lorry Driver of the Year last year, remember? — he called upon our resources in order to assist him in his research.
Keith's visit is likely to take place in December and will last for about two weeks; he will visit the Swedish Road Haulage Association, Scania, Volvo, Shell International and at the same time enjoy the beginning of Sweden's Christmas festivities.
• So tyred
Another travelling man is Tony Linsey-Jones who is MD and expedition leader ofEncounter Overland Ltd. With vehicles based on the Bedford RL chassis they cover 13,000 miles in 13+ weeks to Johannesburg. This includes 8000 miles over unmade roads and bushland and they encounter mud, sand, dust and snow and temperatures reaching 125 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade.
On one trip Tony used a set of SK 1100 by 20 nylon Kelly Springfield crossply covers and at journey's end he tells me there was enough tread for a further few thousand miles.
• Ode to a coach driver
Coach operators are happily used to receiving compliments from their passengers and Premier-Albanian Coaches of Watford and St Albans are no exception. But even they were a little surprised the other day when the post brought a poem composed to the excellence of one of their drivers. It came from a school the firm had carried to North Wales for a field study course and it relates the story of a most unusual event — a wall which, without it being touched, fell on the coach.
No doubt the driver concerned — only referred to as Harry — was thankful for the junior poet's concern because the wall incident must have taken some explaining. The poem concludes: "But spare a thought for Harry's loss/As he tells it to his boss". In fact Harry did not receive a reprimand and he seems pretty popular now with his boss because of his evident success with the children.