LB's Olympian body
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• Management-owned Leyland Bus is to build a doubledeck body for its Olympian bus chassis at the company's Workington assembly plant. First examples of the new Olympian body will be available by the middle of the year and, according to sales and marketing director Owen Quinn, will be "competitively priced".
The Olympian body will be built on the jigs and tools transferred to Workington from the old Eastern Coach Works factory at Lowestoft, closed down by Rover Group around 10 months ago.
The body will feature an alloy subframe with aluminium exterior panelling and is designed for 78-seat operation. Leyland Bus is planning an initial production run of 50 vehicles at Workington, with some 30 new-body Olympians due to be completed by the end of the year. Two Leyland-bodied Olympian double-deckers have already been ordered by Essex-based Colchester Borough Transport.
The first production Olympian bodies will have a single front entrance and a forward staircase behind the driving position. Overall height will be 4.31m — although a lower version might be offered later.
Leyland's double-deck body will not be fitted to the DABbuilt Lion mid-engined chassis.
While few details are available on the exterior styling of the Leyland-built body LB says it will be similar to the previous Eastern Coach Works built double-deck model.
Leyland Bus says it has no ambitions for its Workingtonbuilt body to replace the products offered by other bodybuilders. Rather, it sees the Olympian body as complementing the double-deck bodies offered by manufacturers such as East Lancs, Walter Alexander, and Optare. 0 Leyland Bus has made a number of minor revisions to its Swift midi-chassis since its original launch last October. The driving position and instrument cluster have been repositioned, and the front overhang extended to allow fitting of a wider door. The gear lever has been shortened and is now column-mounted.