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Dennis bus plans o into operation
Page 47
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THE FIRST Dennis bus chassis is now nearly finished and due to go to East Lanes for bodybuilding later this month. It should be completely finished in June.
With 12 of the first pre-production batch already allocated, Dennis is turning its attention to obtaining orders from other operators, to get the Dennis product more widely known in the bus industry.
Many district councils already operate Dennis dustcarts and other municipal vehicles, but the company is not solely concentrating on these for bus sales.
Newly appointed Dennis chief executive, bus and coach, John Hood told CM: "We have a foot in the door with district council operators who have our municipal vehicles, but we want to sell to the bigger operators as well."
Twenty sets of Dennis made-components for the first batch of buses have been produced, but the company only plans to produce 16 buses at the most from this batch.
The spare materials will be kept in case of accident or other damage.
The first chassis being completed will have an East Lanes body and be retained by Dennis as a demonstrator.
The next batch of five will go to Leicester, three with East Lanes bodies and two with Marshalls'.
Another chassis will have an East Lanes body for South Yorkshire PTE, followed by two for East Staffordshire District Council with, as yet, • unspecified bodywork.
One more will go to National Bus, and two have been reserved by an unspecified operator.
After a preliminary 'sounding out', Dennis decided the right first step was to design a chassis that would allow bodybuilders to fit their own Fleetline type bodies, with the minimum of addi tional work.
This is why the first chassis will be to the Fleetline 16ft 3in wheelbase, although later models may be 16ft 9in, to make for better seating layout.
Particular care has been taken with the mechanical components, to make these as widely acceptable as possible.
The Gardner 6LXB has always been a firm favourite with bus operators and will be standard on the first batch of buses, although other engines such as the Rolls Royce Eagle, or Cummins or Perkins units will also fit.
For transmission, Dennis does not envisage fitting any units other than the Voith D851, popular on the continent and rapidly gaining a good reputation with British operators.
The encapsulated engine will be cooled by forced air in a similar fashion to the Bristol VRT, and the radiator will be front mounted.