View allAll Photos Tagged Excel.
Stagecoach Chesterfield Optare Excel YN51VHK 35002 seen in the town centre on the 54 to Clay Cross, 12th May
A shot that was taken while out for a wander with P1ay and Paki Nuttah a few weeks ago.
The viewpoint is Victoria Dock, or as it is now known "Excel Marina"…i'll always know it as the former!
Express Motors Optare Excel EXI 790 is pictured in Caernarfon on route 1F to Carmel via Rhostryfan & Rhosgadfan. The previous registration carried by this bus was X964 BPA and it was new to Reading Transport.
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.
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
Scarborough based EYMS Excel 252 (R252PRH) passes All Saints Church at Hunmanby on it's way from Scarborough to Filey on service 118 this morning under autumn colours.
Car: Lotus Excel.
Engine: 2174cc in-line 4.
Year of manufacture: 1987.
Date of first registration in the UK: 1st August 1987.
Place of registration: Taunton.
Date of last MOT: 17th June 2023.
Mileage at last MOT: 60,018.
Date of last change of keeper: 22nd April 2022.
Number of previous keepers: 8.
Date taken: 14th May 2023.
Album: Classics in Cardiff May 2023
Car: Lotus Excel.
Engine: 2174cc in-line 4.
Year of manufacture: 1987.
Date of first registration in the UK: 1st August 1987.
Place of registration: Taunton.
Date of last MOT: 17th June 2023.
Mileage at last MOT: 60,018.
Date of last change of keeper: 22nd April 2022.
Number of previous keepers: 8.
Date taken: 14th May 2023.
Album: Classics in Cardiff May 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.
RailPictures is a popular target for foamer disdain, usually on account of their screening process (which I actually found to be quite helpful, and made me a much better photographer until I stopped submitting my work in 2010), although I prefer to rag on them on account of their near complete lack of innovation, dated design, and running ads for mail-order brides.
In any event, there were some comments on an Ian Hapsias shot that suggested RP was chugging along and more popular than ever... so, I hopped on the WayBack Machine and plugged their self-reported stats into Excel and found that it's not exactly the case - the average photo views per day peaked in late 2011.
I contend that most of this drop can be attributed to Flickr's increased marketshare in the railfan photo-realm, especially with respect to views coming from other rail photographers; Flickr (and a lack of time on my part) are why we abandoned plans to start a competing rail photo gallery website; I don't think there's much to be offered asides from what the existing platforms have now.
Updated March 13, 2014
Excel 260 is seen arriving at Sutton-in Ashfield on the 141 service from Nottingham.
Tue 29th July 2014.
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)
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.
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?
Optare Excel Y237 DRC fitted with Optare Bodywork and in use with Trent Barton wearing route branded livery for Rainbow 3 Service.
As is tradition, with each new 'blank' bus drawing I do, I also do a liveried up version to go along with it. There were so many choices for the Excel I could've spent hours making different liveries for it and another hour choosing which one to pick for upload. However, I didn't have hours to spare, so I did Rainbow 3 because it was basic and I could quickly and easily make all the branding parts. The red/yellow and rainbow coloured 'bow' logos I both made fairly recently, so I could use them on OMSI repaints, and they certainly came in handy here.
I have vague recollections of seeing these in town when I was taken there as a child, although as they only dipped into Victoria bus station and then left again they were never a major part of my observations, unlike NCT's which were everywhere. The one which made the biggest impact on me was when one must've been on its way to/from Manvers Street for whatever reason, and I saw it go along Parliament Street from a distance. I thought it was some kind of weird, all-orange 36 or something.
No steal plz.
Trent Barton Optare Excel 264 - Y264 DRC departs Victoria bus station on the Centrelink to Broadmarsh bus station. This free service operates at 10 minute intervals and links Nottingham's two bus stations with the City Centre. 264 is covering for one of the four electric Solos allocated to the service and is my favourite Excel in the fleet.