Network for VI Bus & Coach
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• Volvo and Leyland bus and coach operators can now get parts and service from a network of 24 specialised dealers.
The dealers comprise four former dedicated Leyland outlets and 20 Volvo CV dealers. Previously every Volvo truck distributor in the country stocked parts and offered servicing for Volvo buses and coaches. Leyland users had to go to one of their four dealers, in Glasgow, Charley, Nottingham and Bristol, although many Leyland Daf truck franchisees provided parts and service informally.
Now VL Bus & Coach's customers will have a single network, regardless of whether they run Volvos or Leylands. Although the Leyland passenger vehicle marque is owned by Volvo — both Volvo and Leyland buses and coaches are made in Workington — the two products have few components in common. El Volvo could be on the verge of producing a midibus, says VL Bus & Coach. The midibus market is one sector of the PSV industry which is prospering, says managing director Sandy Glennie; 108 midibuses were sold in the UK in the first quarter of this year, compared with 20 in the same period of 1990.
But the company is not looking at a long-term replacement for the 25-38 seater Swift. Small coach sales are down 32% to 33 units in the first quarter of 1991 (five of the vehicles were VLs) and the company says that the passenger vehicle market is "dead".
Glennie is also pessimistic about long term prospects for the industry. He predicts that sales will struggle to pass the 1,400 mark this year — down from 2,347 in 1990 — and "1992 looks hopeless", he says: "I wonder if we will have an industry left by then."
Volvo bought the Leyland bus and coach manufacturing rights in March 1988 and markets both marques through its wholly owned subsidiary VI,.