Mr D. Lloyd's article "Let's design a British coach to
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beat the Continentals" (CM, December 10) begins with the statement. "The typical British touring coach is still basicallly what it has always been — a lorry with a passenger body on it."
The mounting of passenger bodywork on goods chassis died out as a regular practice in Britain over 50 years ago. The merit of the typical British vehicle of orthodox mechanical design with modern body styling is that vehicle cost can be kept down, helping the coach operating industry to cater for a much broader market than is attempted in Continental Europe.
Much though an advanced specification may appeal to the more adventurous type of engineer, the operator has to decide whether his customers would be prepared to pay higher fares to cover Mr Lloyd's extra £9,000 plus on the price of today's coaches.
The virtually unanimous answer seems to be "no", especially in today's circumstances.
Mr Lloyd talks about a possible 20 year life, but how many operators would choose still to be running 1956
coaches today — except for -preserved" vehicles.
ALAN TOWNSIN,
Technical Executive, Confederation of British Road Passenger Transport