KPL
The initials stand for three great Automotive engineers, K.P. Knight of Wisconsin USA, Henri Pieper of Belgium and Fredrick Lanchester of England. It is the ancestor of such vehicles as the Alexander Dennis Enviro 400H as it used Knight-patent sleeve-valve internal combustion power units in conjunction with Pieper dynamotors, able both to generate power and recover it, and lead acid-accumulators.
In order to reach the Metropolitan Police weight stipulation, Lanchester designed a fully integral structure based on a steel channel pressing carrying the lower passenger deck and fixed rigidly to the remaining body frame. Another weight saving feature were the wire wheels, courtesy Rudge-Whitworth of Coventry. The rear pair were 48in diameter and the front pair 40in. Unusually for any vehicle of the time and uniquely for a bus, it had brakes on all four wheels.
In a notorious meeting shortly after the KPL was announced, the owners of the Tilling-Stevens patents were assured that they would not be competed with by London General Omnibus Co on the streets of London and that the Underground group, shortly to purchase LGOC, would pay the legal costs if Tilling sued Daimler over infringement of their patents. They did so; such a move today amounting to anti-competitive behaviour and subject to massive fines;
Daimler lost the initial trial and gave up (later they drove Argyll Motors to recievership despite the Scottish company winning the patent suit with Daimler over sleeve-valve engines).
Thus the KPL was unable to work in London and apart from a brief spell in service with Midland Red in 1911 this advanced bus was stymied. Instead Daimler reached an accommodation with The Combine (the rather sinister contemporary nickname for Underground Electric Railways of London Ltd and its associates and collaborators) and came up with the utterly conventional CC instead. On some demonstrations DU1254 ran with a fully enclosed top deck, then uncommon even on trams and only previously seen on motorbuses in Widnes...
© 1966 Daimler Transport Vehicles courtesy Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust Collection.
KPL
The initials stand for three great Automotive engineers, K.P. Knight of Wisconsin USA, Henri Pieper of Belgium and Fredrick Lanchester of England. It is the ancestor of such vehicles as the Alexander Dennis Enviro 400H as it used Knight-patent sleeve-valve internal combustion power units in conjunction with Pieper dynamotors, able both to generate power and recover it, and lead acid-accumulators.
In order to reach the Metropolitan Police weight stipulation, Lanchester designed a fully integral structure based on a steel channel pressing carrying the lower passenger deck and fixed rigidly to the remaining body frame. Another weight saving feature were the wire wheels, courtesy Rudge-Whitworth of Coventry. The rear pair were 48in diameter and the front pair 40in. Unusually for any vehicle of the time and uniquely for a bus, it had brakes on all four wheels.
In a notorious meeting shortly after the KPL was announced, the owners of the Tilling-Stevens patents were assured that they would not be competed with by London General Omnibus Co on the streets of London and that the Underground group, shortly to purchase LGOC, would pay the legal costs if Tilling sued Daimler over infringement of their patents. They did so; such a move today amounting to anti-competitive behaviour and subject to massive fines;
Daimler lost the initial trial and gave up (later they drove Argyll Motors to recievership despite the Scottish company winning the patent suit with Daimler over sleeve-valve engines).
Thus the KPL was unable to work in London and apart from a brief spell in service with Midland Red in 1911 this advanced bus was stymied. Instead Daimler reached an accommodation with The Combine (the rather sinister contemporary nickname for Underground Electric Railways of London Ltd and its associates and collaborators) and came up with the utterly conventional CC instead. On some demonstrations DU1254 ran with a fully enclosed top deck, then uncommon even on trams and only previously seen on motorbuses in Widnes...
© 1966 Daimler Transport Vehicles courtesy Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust Collection.