ronmccullock
The future is bright, it is the B15 so Leyland thought.....
In May 1968 the Leyland Motor Corporation merged with British Motor Holdings to form British Leyland Motor Corporation, or British Leyland for short. With the formation of British Leyland resulted in BL having the monopoly of the rear-engined double-deck market in the UK comprising of Leyland Atlantean, Bristol VRT and Daimler Fleetline. One man operation of double-deck buses was legalised in 1970 resulting a huge demand for double-deck buses this had a knock on effect on sales of the rear-engined single-deck buses notably the Leyland National which was a joint project between British Leyland Truck & Bus Division and the National Bus Company. A brand new state of the art assembly factory to assemble the Leyland National at the rate of 2000 buses per year had been built on the Lillyhall industrial estate near Workington.
The Industry wanted Leyland develope a second generation rear-engined double-deck chassis, sadly Leyland had other ideas. Towards the end of 1972, Leyland started to put the finishing touches to their thoughts of their next generation double-deck bus coded B15. The Government organised a major transport symposium in April 1973 at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory at Crowthorne in Berkshire. At this event Leyland launched two new Leyland National models, but most importantly launched the B15 both with a full size wooden model and a selection of artist's impressions which I have posted. These were used in discussions with major operators in 1973 and 1974, and some appeared in London Transport and West Midlands PTE liveries. Plus the body style differed from the one in the image I have used.
The B15 was not a chassis but a sophisticated and advanced rear-engined double-deck bus, not what the industry really wanted. In 1973, MCW launched the Metropolitan rear-engined double-deck bus using Scania running units. The Metropolitan was not a threat to Leyland's market share, but it was the foundations for MCW's next double-deck bus, the Metrobus which was a serious threat to Leyland's market share.
I will be going into detail about the B15 project which became the Titan over the next few months with previous unseen photographs.
Photograph credit: British Leyland Truck & Bus Division
The future is bright, it is the B15 so Leyland thought.....
In May 1968 the Leyland Motor Corporation merged with British Motor Holdings to form British Leyland Motor Corporation, or British Leyland for short. With the formation of British Leyland resulted in BL having the monopoly of the rear-engined double-deck market in the UK comprising of Leyland Atlantean, Bristol VRT and Daimler Fleetline. One man operation of double-deck buses was legalised in 1970 resulting a huge demand for double-deck buses this had a knock on effect on sales of the rear-engined single-deck buses notably the Leyland National which was a joint project between British Leyland Truck & Bus Division and the National Bus Company. A brand new state of the art assembly factory to assemble the Leyland National at the rate of 2000 buses per year had been built on the Lillyhall industrial estate near Workington.
The Industry wanted Leyland develope a second generation rear-engined double-deck chassis, sadly Leyland had other ideas. Towards the end of 1972, Leyland started to put the finishing touches to their thoughts of their next generation double-deck bus coded B15. The Government organised a major transport symposium in April 1973 at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory at Crowthorne in Berkshire. At this event Leyland launched two new Leyland National models, but most importantly launched the B15 both with a full size wooden model and a selection of artist's impressions which I have posted. These were used in discussions with major operators in 1973 and 1974, and some appeared in London Transport and West Midlands PTE liveries. Plus the body style differed from the one in the image I have used.
The B15 was not a chassis but a sophisticated and advanced rear-engined double-deck bus, not what the industry really wanted. In 1973, MCW launched the Metropolitan rear-engined double-deck bus using Scania running units. The Metropolitan was not a threat to Leyland's market share, but it was the foundations for MCW's next double-deck bus, the Metrobus which was a serious threat to Leyland's market share.
I will be going into detail about the B15 project which became the Titan over the next few months with previous unseen photographs.
Photograph credit: British Leyland Truck & Bus Division