BCM Community

Another eBay bus... well 3 actually... use one as a toad.

Interesting.   They're a brace of Bristol VR with the usual ECW bodies, in which I've traveled many a mile.   I've never seen any without the door on the left side  -  I can't see if these are RHD or converted to LHD.   If their doors are now on their right sides, I hope they were correctly engineered  -  you can't just cut a big hole in a semi-integral design without possibly weakening it, or at least creating major stress raisers and other insidious problems.   These buses have a vestigial perimeter frame, like their Lodekka ancestors, so their body contributes most of the overall strength and rigidity.

With their bomb-proof Gardner engines and semi-automatic gearboxes, VRs are good for about 60 MPH, but watch out for low-hanging branches!   Nice buses.

John, waxing all nostalgic

OK, I've now looked at the eBay ad.   $30,000 for all three?!?!   The seller (assuming he ever actually sells them) must have found a good supply of Maui Wowie, if he thinks they're worth that.   They haven't run in ten years, their AC installations are more redneck than a lifted El Camino with a window air conditioner in its back window, and I'm sure the Hawaiian weather has been less than kind to them.   It's interesting that their doors are on the right side, behind the stairs, so maybe ECW built them that way for export.   If that's so, perhaps they don't have the usual Gardner/SCG driveline?   With a transverse engine and transmission, what else would fit back there?