Bus Blunders (Hardcover)

The UK bus operating and manufacturing industries are multi-million-pound businesses affecting the lives of millions of people every day, so it is inevitable that mistakes will be made as a result of over-enthusiasm, misreading the market, bad management or just plain poor judgement. In recent years, there have been bus and coach operators with grandiose schemes that were set to change the world, such as the short-lived British Coachways consortium, the AMOS scheme that would have flooded London with minibuses, the BET's minibus ambitions of the late 1980s, and the unwieldy mega-companies created by National Bus Company by London Transport's grand Reshaping Plan. Political misjudgements also played a part, with the New Bus Grants scheme of the 1970s that provided operators with cheap buses but ultimately skewed the market and the supply of buses, as well as other government-inspired ideas such the creation of British Leyland which ended up weakening the stronger Leyland bus. There were also bus models that promised much but didn't deliver, prime examples being the Daimler Roadliner and Guy Wulfrunian, both of which destabilised their builders in the end. In this unique book the authors examine these and many other topical issues through a mix of short one-page articles and other longer pieces. Illustrated throughout with over 200 nostalgic photographs, it will be of interest to all bus enthusiasts who are interested in a heady mix of discussion and debate about all significant issues which have affected the road transport industry over the years.