Bluebirds are really Plaxtons!

[Jeremy]

My bus is built by Plaxton, which is a long-established British builder of buses and coaches. I'd always been curious to know if any Plaxtons had ever made their way to the US, and have just discovered that they have, sort of.

I've just been reading an article in a 2005 bus magazine about the launch of the Bluebird LMB and Ultra LF models, which are apparently both Plaxton designs. Bluebird at the time was owned by a British group called Henlys which also owned Plaxton, and the body and 'major chassis units' of the LMB model are from the Plaxton Pointer bus, whilst the Ultra LF model was a Plaxton design project called 'Bus 2000' which was eventually abandoned and never went into production in Britain.

Shortly after both models were launched by Bluebird the Henlys group apparently collapsed and ownership of Bluebird passed to a partnership between Volvo and a 'consortium of British Banks'.

So there you go - there are Plaxtons in America, sort of.

Jeremy

[Iceni John]

And there are some Blue Bird All American RE school buses in the UK.   They've even got their doors on the left side!   Somehow a bright yellow American school bus looks slightly incongruous in Britain.

John

[luvrbus]

Blue Bird is all American owned now Cebrerus Capital  has control of the company same outfit that owns Safeway and Albertson's super markets 

[Jeremy]

As it happens there is a classic American skoolie that lives not far from me - no idea what make it is except it is the typical dog-nose hippie type. Even closer (about 100 yards away) a guy has a vintage Airstream trailer in his back garden.

I'm constantly amazed by what comes out of the woodwork at car shows etc here - everything you can imagine. In bus terms I saw a very nice Prevost conversion at a show a couple of years ago, and just the other day I saw a photo of a Neoplan Megaliner (monster quad-axle thing) at a British bus show. I had no idea that there were any of those here, although I'd have one myself in a heartbeat.

Jeremy

[lvmci]

Hi Jeremy, I met a guy in a LA RV park from Australia, who has an RV on every continent, but the one in Australia is a MCI7, LVMCI...

[dukegrad98]

Blue Bird is all American owned now Cebrerus Capital  has control of the company same outfit that owns Safeway and Albertson's super markets 

Cerberus was also key in dismantling Chrysler.

Cheers, John

[Dave5Cs]

That makes sense because here in cali Safeway has just announced it is closing as did Albertson many years ago.