https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-GPR5xEMHU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-GPR5xEMHU)
I wonder if the driver even did a pre trip before turning a wheel that morning?? Jeepers around here a crack in the windshield puts you out of servive. You couldn't pay me enough to drive that.
JC
Good one Nel! LOL
Over the yrs being in the towing/mechanics business I've driven worse!
;D BK ;D
It must be like being on a real big Harley...
In Oregon you would see people driving just the chassis with 2 more stacked on the chassis they were driving ,Dale Houston and Don Fairchild drove a Eagle from Washington State to CA that was worse looking than that bus
Ummmm,........no officer, i really don't know how fast i was going! ;D
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fray_bentos/200198976 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/fray_bentos/200198976) And that's how a Bristol running chassis was taken to the body works - from Bristol to Eastern Coachworks at Lowestoft is over 200 miles: imagine doing that during an English winter with rain/sleet/hail/snow in your face at 60 MPH all day!
When I went through Turkey in 1977 I remember seeing a bus, probably a Mercedes O302 or Magirus-Deutz that were popular there at that time, that evidently had been rolled and maybe also had gone down into a ravine. The roofline was crushed all the way down to window level, but a hole had been cut through the roof for a driver's head to stick through - he was driving this strange-looking squashed bus as if it were the most normal thing to do. At times like that I realized I was a long way from home!
John
Quote from: Iceni John on January 03, 2017, 07:25:51 PM
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fray_bentos/200198976 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/fray_bentos/200198976) And that's how a Bristol running chassis was taken to the body works - from Bristol to Eastern Coachworks at Lowestoft is over 200 miles: imagine doing that during an English winter with rain/sleet/hail/snow in your face at 60 MPH all day! John
I'm pretty sure that it was when I lived in Wolverhampton ('72 - 74 but it may have been when I lived in Lichfield '76 - 78), I remember a bus chassis in a very similar configuration being driven from the A446 onto the M6 North (near Birmingham, England airport). The bus chassis was entering from the south and had come from the direction of the Stonebridge roundabout, the intersection with the A45, the Coventry-Birmingham road. It was mid-winter (sometime between September and June, anyway) and I was amazed at the driver's lack of weather protection, except for a Barbour suit, and the total bareness of the bus chassis. There were thin plywood mudguards (as the Bristol photo) but the radiator was at the side rear and the engine was transverse and upright. I do not remember any improvised windscreen for the driver but the "trade plates" as shown in the Bristol photo were prominent. I didn't get a good look at the front of the bus but I remember the plywood panel with tail and brake lights held on with rubber straps (similar to those used to secure a tarp on a flat-bed truck) at the rear.
Due to the location -- on the direct path from the Daimler factory to the main road north to Lancs. (either the Leyland bus and truck factory or Northern Counties bodyworks in Wigan) -- I've since surmised that it was either a local test drive from the Daimler works or transport to Leyland or Northern Counties. I wondered after I bought my bus if I could have possibly seen my chassis being driven from Coventry to Wigan but since I arrived in the Midlands (second stay) in August, 1976 and my bus was delivered to Southend-on-Sea council in May, 1976, it would be impossible.
I also felt for the comfort of the driver, although it was fairly dry it was "crisp cold" -- especially since I was riding a motorcycle myself at the time. It was such an odd occurrence, the memory has stayed with me for over 40 years -- now John posts a photo of a very similar arrangement.