RB's Harrier catches a bus
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• Reeve Burgess of Chesterfield has just completed the first bus version of its Harrier body on a Leyland Swift 4.44m-wheelbase chassis.
Managing director David Quainton says that numerous operators have asked to see this demonstrator, with some seeing it as a rural replacement for the Bristol LH.
It has 39 seats and a luggage pen, but a planned wide-bodied version will take 41 seats with 16 standees. Quainton says that at a cost of 244,000 the bus will have a per-seat-price of 21,073; cheaper than most comparable automatic transmission single-deckers and beaten only by the Olympian doubledecker. Including standees the price drops to £772 per passenger, which is less than any competitor, says Quinton. Introduced last year, the Harrier body is now available as a coach or welfare vehicle on long or short-wheelbase Swift chassis, and as a service bus on the long-wheelbase. Welfare vehicles form about 15% of Reeve Burgess' output. East Yorkshire has placed a 2900,000 order for 26 Reeve Burgess Beaver midibuses on the Mercedes-Benz chassis: 18 are 31 seaters on 811Dchassis, with five 25-seat and three 23-seaters on 709D chassis.