National scores top honours at Brighton
Page 34
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21st British coach rally at Brighton by Martin Watkins
photographs by Harry Roberts TOP AWARDS at the 21st British coach rally held at Brighton at the weekend were carried off by National Travel South-East. Four coaches were entered by National, the winning one being a Plaxton Executive-bodied Bristol RE.
The rally took place on the hottest weekend so far this year, in front of bumper crowds. The weather was a marked contrast to that at Blackpool the week before, when the National vehicle was pipped at the post by Ruxley's Duple Dominant executive.
Ruxley's coach, a Plaxtonbodied Leopard belonging to Tatlock and Son and a factoryentered Jonckheere coach had all completed the marathon run back from the Monte Carlo rally (see page 24) in order to get to Brighton. As it was the Ruxley party was obviously disappointed in not taking off top honours at Brighton as well as Blackpool, but felt their long-distance exercise worthwhile.
Sprint start
As usual, coaches completed the road section on Saturday as well as the eliminating rounds of the driving tests. A new item here was the Le Mans type sprint start for one of the tests. Final driving tests, as well as judging of the Concours d'Elegance section took place in warm sunshine on Sunday.
As usual the judges had a difficult time in making their choices. One impressive feature this year, was the trend towards simpler and more effective liveries.
In the driving tests finalists had to complete three exercises : a high-speed manoeuvring test; a kerb parking exercise; and a slow-speed column dodging event.
Although semi automatic coaches seemed to have a great advantage in the speed sections, Tim Rees driving for Hills of Tredegar came through to win. The vehicle was in fact only a last-minute entry, the formalities being completed only 12 hours before the start. The decision to enter was a good one; Hills also won the prize for the premier British operator.
A familiar personality in the driving tests was Alec Best, of Best Tours of Ealing, but he was not driving his usual luxury vehicle. Having broken a leg skiing, Alec had to borrow an ex-London Transport RF with a pre-selector gearbox. The rules had to be slightly bent so that he could use a runner in the Le Mans sprint start on the Saturday.
As well as the new Jonckheere Bermuda body—making its first UK appearance with a price tag for the body of £18,000—a Van Hool on a Fiat chassis was the only other foreign-owned coach. Van Hool is expecting to start production of its 300 Series body at its McArdle Works in Dublin by the end of the year and is clearly keying itself up to a major marketing effort in Britain. Other foreign bodies— on British chassis—which attracted attention were the Moseley Continental Finnish body and the Spanish Ayats design shown at Earls Court.
Despite the economic climate the entry was a good one —nearly 80 coaches—and this is an encouraging pointer to the morale of the industry at the start of what could be a difficult year. Still one leading operator reported to me that bookings were 28 per cent up in the UK and 100 for Continental tours.