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Notts & Derby Optare Excel 264 - Y264 DRC and Scania L94UB / Wright Solar 620 - FJ03 VWK are parked side by side in Derby depot. The Excel was the final operational example in Wellglade ownership out of a large fleet of over a hundred owned, and had already been withdrawn from service, while the Scania was a recent transfer from Nottingham depot and retained its Trent Barton Cotgrave Connection livery.
Travel West Midlands first Optare Excel nears completion on the production line in Leeds, with Nottingham Solo 291 beyond. 12th November 1998
KaBoogie Optare Excel 2 L1180 NY03 JJF Seen at Grainger Street in the evening, working as a “Party Bus”. This particular Excel was new to Middlesbrough Council as a playbus in 2003 and has remained in the region ever since, passing onto KaBoogie in 2015 where it was converted into a “Party Bus” by Blackpool Design Coachbuilders. An article on this bus can be read here: bdc-uk.co.uk/party-bus/
08/07/2023
7207 was one of a batch of Optare Excels delivered new to the Travel London operation. Once finished with in London service some were transferred straight to the West Midlands, whilst others went to Dundee.
This example came to the West Midlands from Dundee and entered service in may 2009. It's seen 3 months later at work on the 255 to Merry Hill.
Saturday December 18th was the first day without Arriva services in Guildford. Having picked up the contract for service 18, Safeguard placed their AEC Reliance out into service to mark their first day, as well as allocating all three Excels for the day.
On service 3 was X307 CBT, seen here on its way back from Bellfields. The Reliance duplicated this journey and wasn't far behind.
Chertsey Street, Guildford, Surrey.
Ehh look it's an Excel on stilts.
In the space of a few weeks this summer I managed to go from having no Optare model bus kits to having three. One of them was an Excel 1 metal kit, which I intended to convert into one of NCT's Excel 2s. This was one of my shortest lived model plans ever, as within a month I'd procured myself this Excel 2 resin kit.
I know I've bodged Excels out of OOC Deltas before, but I always thought that if I were to ever do an NCT Excel model, I'd want the proper kit. Never expected to have two of them, though!
Because the metal kit has the front, rear, sides and roof all as individual pieces, there isn't really a way I could mock it up for a photo, but the resin one just slides together. It's on stilts because of the things the wheels are moulded onto (it took AGES to get it to balance like this) but you can sort of see what it looks like.
Unfortunately, it's banana-shaped. The middle is noticeably higher than the front and rear, especially along the window line. The whole bodyshell is slightly warped. The idea I had to fix it was to steam the bodyshell over a pan of boiling water, and hope that it went soft enough to bend back into shape without some other part warping in the process. Now, I did that, and it looks like it's worked, but the question now is will it stay fixed or next time I get it out of the box, will it be banana shaped again?
All of the pictures are © copyright by P1ay "All rights are reserved" worldwide. Please do not use, copy or edit any of my photographs. However please feel free to contact with me if you are interested in using any of my images.
With my normal lens still out of commission, I am using 50mm. Using this lens you really have to think about your composition as everything is very tight and you are forced to either take a step back or forward, which I love.
I recently bought some new toys and have not had a chance to use it any of them yet. One of my new toys is a small portable up lighter and I finally got to use it. I had turned it down to the lowest brightness and it was still to brighter, it was on red but changed colour with processing.
As it was the final stages of the blue hour, I used the spilt toning to changed the highlights to blue, decreased the highlights too, increased the clarity and finally added some vignetting in lightrooms.
All of the pictures are © copyright by P1ay "All rights are reserved" worldwide. Please do not use, copy or edit any of my photographs. However please feel free to contact with me if you are interested in using any of my images.
Excel 260 is seen arriving at Sutton-in Ashfield on the 141 service from Nottingham.
Tue 29th July 2014.
If there was ever a livery that was expected for me to put on an Optare Excel... this is not it. This is absolutely not it, but I did it anyway.
A thought I had before I remade the Excel drawing was what one would look like in the current 'Mango spare' TrentBarton livery. I think it looks quite good actually, which is a credit to the Excel for still looking modern, despite being about 25 years old. It's on the Skylink Express because there's always a spare on the Skylink Express.
Given TrentBarton's current vehicle shortage, they could probably do with a few of these. Though also given their current vehicle shortage, why did they keep withdrawing Solars and transferring Eclipses to Kinchbus and Solos to TM Travel when they knew they had nothing to replace them? Now they've run out of buses and I don't see anything from N&D/TM/Kinch going back the other way on loan.
Who cares? I made a thing.
The TWM Excel was manufactured by Terry Wren Motors and is thought to be one of about 70 made. They were produced during the late 50s and early 60s. The firm went on to produce fibreglass housings for radar installations.
See more car pics on my facebook page!
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The Type 89 Lotus Excel, built from 1982 to 1992, is a front-engined, rear-wheel drive sports car designed and built by Lotus. It was based on the design of the earlier Lotus Eclat, which itself was based on the earlier Lotus Elite II.
Toyota engaged Lotus to assist with engineering work on the Supra. During this period, Toyota became a major shareholder in Lotus, later giving up their holding when General Motors bought Lotus.
Part of the deal between Lotus and Toyota included the use of many Toyota mechanical components in Lotus' cars. The original Excel (aka the Éclat Excel) used the W58 manual transmission, driveshafts, rear differential, 14x7 in alloy wheels, and door handles from the Supra Mk II, which was made from 1982 to 1986. The engine was the familiar all-aluminium, DOHC 2.2 L Lotus 912 Slant Four (which was used in the Lotus Esprit S3). During its lifetime, the Excel received two major upgrades with the introduction of the Excel SE (a 180 bhp/134 kW engine vs the standard 160 bhp/119 kW engined car) in 1985 and the Excel SA with automatic gearbox in 1986. Further facelifts in 1989 saw Citroen-derived mirrors, as featured on the Esprit, and 15 inch OZ alloy wheels to a similar pattern as the Esprit's.
According to Lotus records, only 1 Excel was manufactured to USA specification. The lack of release in the USA was due to the high emission regulations (which would hinder the car's performance), and poor sales of the car in Europe.
(Wikipedia)
Safeguard of Guildford operate 3 Optare Excel. One of which was bought new whilst the other 2 started life with Tillingbourne of Cranleigh. One of the latter 2 X308CBT is seen on Stoke Rd 05/06/23 at 13:44.
Now at the very end of its life and about to donate some of its mechanicals to keep 693 running, TWM Excel 687 nears completion at Optare, 12 November 1998.
National Express Travel West Midlands Optare Excel 416. R416HWU in Lichfield Street, Wolverhampton on the 15th April 2009.
This is the eastern end of London's ExCeL Arena. To the right of the red cladding is an enormous sliding door. It was designed in Biggleswade to a high acoustic standard, to keep out the noise from City Airport. It is tall, so that boats for the London Boat Show can be taken in and out.
Due to trademark issues with Peugeot the first generation Hyundai Accent was sold as Excel in the Netherlands. It was built from 1994 until 2000. This one is powered by a 1.3 litre engine wth 84 PS.
Blackpool Transport Optare Excel T884RBR 221 seen near Blackpool North station on the 2, 29th May
All photos from this trip will appear on lukestransportphotos.smugmug.com/ over the next few days
Seen here is an example of the unloved Optare Excel integral vehicle R209 DKG, one of a number new to Cardiff in 1997. It had formerly been with Central Connect before being photographed here at a dealers in October 2009. It latterly operated with Edwards Coaches in Cardiff. Alongside it is seen Volvo B10B / Alexander M416 UNW that had been new to Yorkshire Woollen in 1994 and had latterly operated with Arriva North West. Unusually although a red band has been crudely applied to distingush it as a sold vehicle, the Arriva names have not been covered over.
trent barton 264 Y264DRC Optare Excel L1180 B42F leaving Broad Marsh Bus Station in Nottingham on the ruddington connection to Ruddington on 12 September 2015.