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Prototype Leyland National Business Commuter UTJ 595M on display
To follow on from my previous post showing pre-production Leyland National 00010 FRM 499K on display at a Silver Jubilee event held in Worden Park in Leyland on 4th June 1977. I mentioned in my previous post that a number of prototype and pre-production Leyland buses were on display. This photograph shows the prototype Leyland National Business Commuter UTJ 595M alongside prototype Leyland Titan B15.03. If you check my Leyland B15 Titan album you will see a photograph of B15.03 at this event.
The Business Commuter was built in 1973 for display at a Government organised "Moving People in Cities" symposium held at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory at Crowthorne in April 1973. It left Lillyhall without any seating and went to a company who specialised exhibitions to be trimmed out with eight swivel seats in the front half complete with work stations. The rear section of the National had 14 seats as a hospitality area. Leyland decided to keep the prototype Business Commuter as a toy basically and they ran it for 10 years before it passed to the ownership of the British Commercial Vehicle Museum in Leyland.
A strange twist came in the late nineties when the Motor Industry Heritage Trust Museum at Gaydon discovered that they owned the prototype Leyland National Business Commuter and demanded that the BCVM hand over the bus! It would be no use to them, because their museum houses cars, it was used as a rally control on open days when they had gatherings of cars. Sadly these days it is rotting away. The Business Commuter which the National Bus Company purchased is in safe hands and restored.
Photograph credit: Basil Hancock
Prototype Leyland National Business Commuter UTJ 595M on display
To follow on from my previous post showing pre-production Leyland National 00010 FRM 499K on display at a Silver Jubilee event held in Worden Park in Leyland on 4th June 1977. I mentioned in my previous post that a number of prototype and pre-production Leyland buses were on display. This photograph shows the prototype Leyland National Business Commuter UTJ 595M alongside prototype Leyland Titan B15.03. If you check my Leyland B15 Titan album you will see a photograph of B15.03 at this event.
The Business Commuter was built in 1973 for display at a Government organised "Moving People in Cities" symposium held at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory at Crowthorne in April 1973. It left Lillyhall without any seating and went to a company who specialised exhibitions to be trimmed out with eight swivel seats in the front half complete with work stations. The rear section of the National had 14 seats as a hospitality area. Leyland decided to keep the prototype Business Commuter as a toy basically and they ran it for 10 years before it passed to the ownership of the British Commercial Vehicle Museum in Leyland.
A strange twist came in the late nineties when the Motor Industry Heritage Trust Museum at Gaydon discovered that they owned the prototype Leyland National Business Commuter and demanded that the BCVM hand over the bus! It would be no use to them, because their museum houses cars, it was used as a rally control on open days when they had gatherings of cars. Sadly these days it is rotting away. The Business Commuter which the National Bus Company purchased is in safe hands and restored.
Photograph credit: Basil Hancock