Optare takes Metrorider
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Optare has acquired the manufacturing and marketing rights of MCW's loss-making Metrorider range, including the 6-seaters and 33-seaters, and renamed them Optare Metroriders.
The company plans to produce 200 vehicles a year, depending on demand, to complement its existing range of CityPacers and StarRiders. It says: "There is a niche for each product." Marketing manager Steve Johnson says Optare plans to "keep marketing at the right price, production times to a minimum and raw materials costed properly". The first deliveries of Optare Metroriders will begin in November, and Optare says the acquisition will also boost its export effort.
The company plans to set up a Metrorider spares and service system, that it hopes will "iron out as many problems" of the sort the user group claims to have encountered, but warns that it cannot be expected to resolve all problems from the previous regime.
Optare may recruit previous MCW employees to fill the 30 to 50 appointments that the acquisition entails, though nothing has been finalised yet. MCW was unavailable for comment.