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Just look at the YMT's price

17th October 1975
Page 19
Page 19, 17th October 1975 — Just look at the YMT's price
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A QUICK RUN in the Bedford YMT demonstrator with Plaxton Supreme body during the Arlington coach show in Bristol showed the new Bedford 500 to be a great improvement on the 466 it has replaced.

Bags of power was available at low and high revs. Compared with this sparkling performance at both ends of the rev band there was a marked lack of "go" in the middle.

The Yeates show at Loughborough offered a second opportunity to try the same coach on the motorway.

While the engine performance was impressive the coach was let down by the transmission—which was very noisy, especially on the overrun. I awarded other minus points for the small-diameter steering wheel and for the steering-column height. When I was seated so as to reach the pedals easily the wheel was only a couple of inches above my knees and was far too small to give the driver much feeling of confidence. When braking from about 65 mph the slight side-to-side twitch coupled with a minute amount of play in the steering box was rather worrying.

I understand that Bedford has a larger steering-wheel planned for the future.

The power steering itself was excellent at low speeds and I had no trouble manoeuvring the 11-metre coach through tight corners. Brakes too were spot-on at low speeds—and the twitch associated with higher-speed braking will probably disappear when the brakes are fully bedded in.

A metal collar has now been fitted by Bedford to its spring parking brake control to prevent the plastic wearing away

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Locations: Bristol, Arlington

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