Inspector Morose

A few pics from Saturday.










 

A few pics from Saturday.










 

A few pics from Saturday.










 

A few pics from Saturday.










 

A few pics from Saturday.










 

A few pics from Saturday.










 

A few pics from Saturday.










 

A few pics from Saturday.










 

This weekend has been a fix the white BX weekend by @juular, he has been going hard at it and is progressing.
He invited his own small support crew who came to a damp cold field in North Buckinghamshire to help and have takeaways in a cold barn. The diesel heater works well but the warm air is lost in the open barn.
It set me thinking about a general invite Winter FoD meeting and if we set up the 3m x 6m party tent inside the barn I think the diesel heater would be effective in there. You can’t drive on the grass in winter without damaging it or getting stuck so I don’t think it would be so much a doing event as a social gathering. You could still car camp in the yard if you like or tent camp if you carried your tent to your chossen spot.
Is there an appetite for such an event, say the Christmas week?

Don Grant is the son of Gregor Grant who founded Autosport magazine.

This thread reminds me of the Bumper Book of Car Toons by Don Grant, a book poured over in my childhood.

Chucked in 20L of diesel. @Talbot managed to fix the stubborn stuck steering lock.
 
It lives!
 
Might want rear spheres though 🤪

This thread reminds me of the Bumper Book of Car Toons by Don Grant, a book poured over in my childhood.

The crew are asleep on the job.


Lazy buggers.

Oh, it's not a shame at all. The National, love it or hate it, moved the game on in terms of construction, ergonomics, ease of repair, I could go on. Whether it was wise to develop the production facility to be capable of making so many (a figure only halfway reached at the peak of production). Export should have been better as it was right up there, compared to the competition but unfortunately, sales were often hamstrung by odd management decisions on how to price it. 'That' engine? well, the idea of a highly turbocharged, low-capacity engine is now standard across the industry; maybe Leyland was heading in the right direction but just not with a fully developed product (there are tales about the design of that engine I could bore the pants off even the most ardent of enthusiast).
National was a good bus but should have been part of a range, utilising the same construction techniques and technology to spread the costs a little. However, Leyland just sat back and said take it or leave it. For those who wanted something smaller and lighter, there was the agricultural Bristol LH and for coach work, the equally stone age (compared to the National) Leopard that had the advantage of being available with a separate body (for the home market, was that really an advantage by then?). Leyland did expand the National eventually to include rail and as a body for articulated buses but that really was it. They had developed some truly groundbreaking ideas with it then basically did nothing with the technology that they'd spent millions developing (apart from building the one bus it was originally developed for).
 
For all of its faults, the NBC was a good thing, especially after it had matured from its troubled conception into something that was a bit more localised than the rigid monolith that was originally envisioned. Sure it 'killed' a lot of well-known companies and painted their buses in a uniform colour instead of a multitude of shades but the passenger was still the focus, not profit. Compare and contrast to what privatisation and the forced split up of the NBC has done and we have now got monopolistic companies operating the majority of services with buses painted in all one colour but now the customer are their shareholders and passengers are only seen as a means to generate income. Flawed, it may have been but I'd rather have the NBC than today's utter shambles and it shows as a good example that the market might be the answer to some things but when it comes to others....just maybe it isn't.

Agricultural engined, smoke snorting buses with bone jarring suspension, cold blue formica and bare checker-plate interiors topped off with heat sticky red vinyl seats.
What a time to be alive.

This thread reminds me of the Bumper Book of Car Toons by Don Grant, a book poured over in my childhood.

This thread reminds me of the Bumper Book of Car Toons by Don Grant, a book poured over in my childhood.

"We've given you the Ford today as you know how to slow down using the gears as the brakes aren't working properly", classic greeting when I signed on one morning.
As for Bedford gearboxes, at least with the front engined ones you can get the gear lever out and stick a crowbar in when needed.

Don Grant is the son of Gregor Grant who founded Autosport magazine.

All I’ve got to say is Ford six speed box. At least the gears are in the same place as where you left them on a Bedford.

This thread reminds me of the Bumper Book of Car Toons by Don Grant, a book poured over in my childhood.

This thread reminds me of the Bumper Book of Car Toons by Don Grant, a book poured over in my childhood.

While the PCM-RE did indeed have its engine mounted horizontally under the driver, it wasn't front-wheel drive although that heavy front hub design would tend you towards thinking this was the case. In reality, it was just a Berliet PCM with another deck on top and built to a low height. They only lasted about 9 years before being pulled off because of their restrictive headroom inside, suspension problems, and, basically, it was a crap idea to build a low-height underfloor engined double-decker!
After their life in service in Paris, a good number found second lives as promotional tools, travellers campers, I believe one became a mobile brothel for a time (headroom not really an issue if you're horizontal, I suppose). It's possible that two survive in preservation, one in the Paris Museum of Urban Transport and another (the prototype) was reported at Musée Automobile de Reims-Champagne. It's also possible, although highly unlikely, that there could be the remains of one or two scattered around too.

This thread reminds me of the Bumper Book of Car Toons by Don Grant, a book poured over in my childhood.