Plaxton for Badgerline
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• A record-breaking order from Badgerline Holdings for 396 Plaxton bus bodies reveals how keenly manufacturers are having to bid to win new orders. It includes the first sizeable UK order for the Verde citybus body, 17 months after its launch.
At £8.8m, this is Plaxton's highest value order to date, topping the £7.5m order for 150 Premiere 320 coach bodies for Stagecoach announced only a few days earlier (CM 13-19 Aug).
The deal covers 229 Beaver minibuses, 90 Pointer midibuses and 77 Verde single-deckers. Chassis manufacturers are still bidding for their share of the contract, for delivery between early 1993 and late 1994. Badgerline has large numbers of Beaver-bodied MercedesBanz minibuses and it has just bought 17 Pointer-bodied Dennis Darts for its Thamesway subsidiary in London.
Plaxton will not give detailed prices of individual models, but the going rate for bodies in the Beaver and Pointer classes are about £18,000 and £26,000.
The Verdes are likely to have been sold for about £30,000 each.
El Plaxton and Volvo are to sell complete coaches in Continental and other world markets.
They have signed a joint agreement which starts in the last quarter of this year, runs for at least five years and has a target of 200 coaches a year. It could lead to local assembly on bus market sales.