Daimler Freeline
Encyclopedia
The Daimler Freeline is an underfloor-engined bus chassis built by Daimler between 1951 and 1964. It was a very poor seller in the UK market for underfloor-engined bus and coach chassis but became a substantial export success.
It was the first of only three Daimler PSV models to have a name as well as an alphanumeric identity. The others were the Daimler Fleetline
and the Daimler Roadliner
.
. During wartime the BMMO (Midland Red
) company built prototypes for a substantial fleet of buses to this layout, which they built from 1946 for their own use, over 400 were in service by 1952.
The first manufacturer to offer this new and more economic design for general sale was Sentinel
of Shrewsbury, from 1947, their models were of integral construction as was the Leyland–MCW Olympic which followed in 1948. In 1949 the Associated Equipment Company launched its Regal IV chassis. In 1950 Leyland Motors introduced the Leyland Royal Tiger, also a separate chassis.
The previous Daimler CVD6 half-cab single decker had sold well immediately after the war, particularly to coach operators and independent bus operators, neither of whom were previously core Daimler customers. When in 1950 the permitted length of single deckers was relaxed to a new maximum of 30 feet the CVD6 was offered in a version for long bodies but half-cabs were becoming obsolete on the home market.
In April 1950 Daimler announced that it would build an underfloor-engined bus and coach chassis. This was the Freeline. The first two were demonstrators. Chassis 25000 was a D650HS sent from Coventry to H. V. Burlingham
for bodying to the Seagull coach style in March 1951. It was later registered LKV218. The second demonstrator, chassis 25001 was sent to Duple Coachbuilders
in Hendon and received a B30D+30 (standing) bus body. It was registered LRW377 and exhibited on the Daimler Stand at the 1951 Scottish Motor Show at the Kelvin Hall
in Glasgow in the livery of Edinburgh Corporation, whose general manager was eager to trial standee single deckers on busier routes.
Three power units were offered:
The 5HLW and 6HLW from L Gardner and Sons Ltd were also used in equivalent chassis by Guy Motors
, Bristol Commercial Vehicles
, and Atkinson Vehicles Ltd and in an integral by Saunders-Roe
. The 5HLW five-cylinder 7-litre engine developed 87 bhp, later uprated to 94 bhp, and the 6HLW 8.4-litre six-cylinder produced 102bhp, later uprated to 112.
Models with these engines were coded G5HS and G6HS respectively.
Daimler also offered a purpose-built own-make engine for this model. This engine was called the D650H and was derived from the D650 engine used in the rare post-war CD650 double-decker. Swept volume was 10.6 litres, and the major difference from the vertical version of the engine was the sump casting. Parts commonality was such that CD650 operators could and did use the 'top end' of the horizontal engine when they could not get spares for the vertical version. Output was originally 125bhp @ 1,650 rpm but this was soon raised to 150bhp @ 2,000 rpm, which was class-leading power in 1953. The model code for this version was D650HS.
The axles was similar to those of the CD650, the rear axle was a substantial underslung worm unit with the differential offset to the left.
Braking was originally full-power hydraulic on the controversial Lockheed Automotive Products
continuous flow system as employed on the CD650 and, as with that chassis, hydraulic-assistance could also be applied to the steering and the gear-selection pedal. The hydraulic system was unpopular with operators and air braking was 'quietly introduced' as an option in 1952. For the home market only one wheelbase was offered: 16ft 4ins for 30ft by 8ft bodywork. For export markets a longer 17ft 6in wheelbase (for 33ft bodies) was standard, with a 20ft 4ins version for 36ft bodies introduced for markets where that length was permitted in 1954.
Originally the transmission was a Daimler five-speed preselector type (either overdrive-top or close-ratio with direct top, with four-speed optional) but from 1957 the Daimatic direct operating semi-automatic transmission was available with four forward speeds and this, with either electro-pneumatic or direct-air change-speed mechanism soon became standard. Drive in both cases came from the engine through a remotely mounted fluid flywheel.
The radiator was mounted vertically directly behind the front wheels and the semi-elliptic leaf springs were of substantial construction.
It soon became clear that the Freeline, like the Regal IV, Royal Tiger and Guy Arab UF was over-engineered for UK operating conditions. A typical bodied 39-seat coach could weigh more than a 60-seat half-cab double-decker bus. Leyland, AEC and Guy developed lightweight chassis for the home market, but there was not to be a Daimler equivalent to the Leyland Tiger Cub
, AEC Reliance
or Guy Arab LUF. Geoffrey Hillditch who ordered the last Freelines built, expressed regret that Daimler did not build such a vehicle.
The Corporation fleets who purchased the Freeline were:
Total: 19 chassis.
(*The Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport and Electricity Board, the longest-named transport undertaking in England.)
Edinburgh Corporation had extended loan of LRW377 Daimler's demonstrator G6HS with a body by Duple Coachbuilders
to a 30-seater dual-door standee layout with doors at front and rear but they did not buy it and when Daimler finished with it, it was sold to Samuel Ledgard
, the Leeds independent who added six more seats but frequently found the brake system problematic.
The SHMD, Glasgow and Swindon Freelines carried centre-entrance standee bus bodies with 30 to 34 seats, the Cleethorpes ones had 43 seats and were fitted with front doors. The Coventry examples were C41F coaches as Coventry, unusually for a corporation, had authorisation to hire coaches to the general public. So did Great Yarmouth, whose two batches had DP43F bodies by Roe, the second batch with Alexander-style double-curvature windscreens.
For Daimler in the first half of the 1950s there were a number of private coach operators who were impressed by the large-engined Freeline's power (25 bhp more than Leyland and AEC) and refinement which was unsurpassed, even by the standards of previous Daimlers.
Around 50 D650HS entered service in Great Britain as private-operator coaches by the middle of the decade, although sales tailed off later. The hydraulic braking system used originally provided the greatest assistance to the driver at higher road speeds, and it did not respond well to repeated stop-start-operation, this aspect of the Freeline's character perhaps explains its aptness to coaching applications, the Freeline did not attract the reputation of being under-braked which attached to the Regal IV and (especially) the vacuum-braked Royal Tiger coach.
Independent Freeline coach customers included Northern Roadways of Glasgow, Tailby & George (Blue Bus Service) of Willington, Derbyshire (who took one D650HS to add to England's second-largest fleet of CD650s and who later operated Roadliner coach TNU675F) and Burwell and District in Cambridgeshire, who were the most regular purchaser of Freeline coaches, taking five from 1953-9 with Plaxton
and Willowbrook bodies. Builders of home-market coaches on the Freeline included Bellhouse-Hartwell, Burlingham, Duple, Mann Egerton, Plaxton and Willowbrook.
St Helen’s Co-operative Society were the purchaser of the Mann Egerton-bodied coach. This was to the Crellin-Duplex patented 'half-deck' layout. This involved facing pairs of seats for four passengers being interlaced either two steps above or below the central gangway, which enabled a height of less than 12ft 6in (3.7m) and a seating capacity of 50, compared with a maximum of 43 for conventional single deck coaches.
, New Zealand
was the greatest adherent of the Freeline. They took 160 of the D650HS model between 1952-8, all were thirty-three feet long with front and centre doors and typically Kiwi doorless luggage boxes below the saloon floor in the wheelbase outboard of the frames. The first (their number 201, registered p2.252) was exported completely built up with a Saunders-Roe B44D body. Daimler and SARO supplied the other 89 of the initial batch as completely knocked down (CKD) kits which were assembled in New Zealand. The second batch of 70 from 1956-8 were locally bodied.
Auckland had also ordered smaller batches of AEC Regal IV, Leyland Royal Tigers and also BUT trolleybuses. The Daimlers had weaknesses, they were prone to overheat, but they were better performers than their diesel rivals and became the backbone of the Auckland fleet until the early 1970s.
Other export markets for the Freeline included South Africa
, Nigeria
, India
, Norway
, Belgium
, Spain
, Portugal
, Australia
and Israel
. The buses for Bombay were the only examples of the five-cylinder G5HS model built.
received 26 underfloor-engined single-deckers which were described as Daimler CVU6LX. They were actually Guy Victories powered by Gardner 6HLX engines, Jaguar having decided to badge-engineer in this way as Daimler was the better known brand in Portugal and these buses were delivered along with a consignment of Fleetlines for the same operator.
's Museum of Transport and Technology
. This bus was formerly Auckland Transport Board No.150 (Daimler chassis no.25081).
Two of the 31 Daimler Freelines that went to Western Australia have been preserved by the Bus Preservation Society of Western Australia at their Whiteman Park facility in suburban Perth. These are from the batch of 20 Freelines delivered to the Western Australian Government Tramways (WAGT) in 1957/58. They are WAGT fleet numbers 143 and 147 which became Metropolitan (Perth) Transport Trust (MTT) numbers 295 and 299 when the WAGT was absorbed into the MTT.
It was the first of only three Daimler PSV models to have a name as well as an alphanumeric identity. The others were the Daimler Fleetline
Daimler Fleetline
The Daimler Fleetline is a rear-engined double-decker bus chassis built between 1960 and 1973 in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, and from 1973 until 1980 in Farington, Lancashire, England. However, the last complete vehicle did not enter service until 1983...
and the Daimler Roadliner
Daimler Roadliner
The Daimler Roadliner was a single deck bus or coach chassis built by Daimler between 1962 and 1972. Notoriously unreliable, it topped the 1993 poll by readers of Classic Bus as the worst bus type ever, beating the Guy Wulfrunian into second place...
.
Background
The first underfloor-engined bus and coach chassis in Britain were built by Leyland Motors, Tilling-Stevens and the Associated Equipment Company in the years immediately prior to World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. During wartime the BMMO (Midland Red
Midland Red
Midland Red was a bus company which operated in the English Midlands from 1905 to 1981. It was the trading name used by the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company , which was renamed Midland Red Omnibus Company in 1974...
) company built prototypes for a substantial fleet of buses to this layout, which they built from 1946 for their own use, over 400 were in service by 1952.
The first manufacturer to offer this new and more economic design for general sale was Sentinel
Sentinel Waggon Works
Sentinel Waggon Works Ltd was a British company based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire that made steam-powered lorries, railway locomotives, and later, diesel engined lorries and locomotives.-Alley & MacLellan, Sentinel Works, Jessie Street Glasgow:...
of Shrewsbury, from 1947, their models were of integral construction as was the Leyland–MCW Olympic which followed in 1948. In 1949 the Associated Equipment Company launched its Regal IV chassis. In 1950 Leyland Motors introduced the Leyland Royal Tiger, also a separate chassis.
The previous Daimler CVD6 half-cab single decker had sold well immediately after the war, particularly to coach operators and independent bus operators, neither of whom were previously core Daimler customers. When in 1950 the permitted length of single deckers was relaxed to a new maximum of 30 feet the CVD6 was offered in a version for long bodies but half-cabs were becoming obsolete on the home market.
In April 1950 Daimler announced that it would build an underfloor-engined bus and coach chassis. This was the Freeline. The first two were demonstrators. Chassis 25000 was a D650HS sent from Coventry to H. V. Burlingham
H. V. Burlingham
H. V. Burlingham was a coachbuilding business based in Blackpool, Lancashire from 1928 until 1960 when they were taken over by London-based rivals Duple Motor Bodies Limited. Duple initially renamed Burlingham as Duple but in 1969 they closed their Hendon factory and concentrated production in...
for bodying to the Seagull coach style in March 1951. It was later registered LKV218. The second demonstrator, chassis 25001 was sent to Duple Coachbuilders
Duple Coachbuilders
Duple was best known as a British manufacturer of coach and bus bodywork from 1919 until 1989.-History:Duple Bodies & Motors Ltd was formed in 1919 by Herbert White in Hornsey, London...
in Hendon and received a B30D+30 (standing) bus body. It was registered LRW377 and exhibited on the Daimler Stand at the 1951 Scottish Motor Show at the Kelvin Hall
Kelvin Hall
The Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, Scotland, is a mixed-use arts and sports venue that opened as an exhibition centre in 1927. It has been a music hall, indoor arena and barrage balloon factory, and is currently home to the Kelvin Hall International Sports Arena and from 1987 to 2010, Glasgow's Museum of...
in Glasgow in the livery of Edinburgh Corporation, whose general manager was eager to trial standee single deckers on busier routes.
Description
Like its Leyland and AEC rivals the Freeline had a high straight ladder frame made of substantial steel channel section with an optional rear drop-frame extension for luggage boots on coaches or standee platforms for urban buses.Three power units were offered:
The 5HLW and 6HLW from L Gardner and Sons Ltd were also used in equivalent chassis by Guy Motors
Guy Motors
Guy Motors was a British company based in Fallings Park, Wolverhampton that made cars, lorries, buses, and trolleybuses.-History:Guy Motors Ltd was founded in 1914 by Sydney Guy who had been the Works Manager of nearby Sunbeam. A factory was built on the site at Fallings Park, Wolverhampton...
, Bristol Commercial Vehicles
Bristol Commercial Vehicles
Bristol Commercial Vehicles was a vehicle manufacturer of in Bristol, England. Most production was of buses but trucks and railbus chassis were also built....
, and Atkinson Vehicles Ltd and in an integral by Saunders-Roe
Saunders-Roe
Saunders-Roe Limited was a British aero- and marine-engineering company based at Columbine Works East Cowes, Isle of Wight.-History:The name was adopted in 1929 after Alliot Verdon Roe and John Lord took a controlling interest in the boat-builders S.E. Saunders...
. The 5HLW five-cylinder 7-litre engine developed 87 bhp, later uprated to 94 bhp, and the 6HLW 8.4-litre six-cylinder produced 102bhp, later uprated to 112.
Models with these engines were coded G5HS and G6HS respectively.
Daimler also offered a purpose-built own-make engine for this model. This engine was called the D650H and was derived from the D650 engine used in the rare post-war CD650 double-decker. Swept volume was 10.6 litres, and the major difference from the vertical version of the engine was the sump casting. Parts commonality was such that CD650 operators could and did use the 'top end' of the horizontal engine when they could not get spares for the vertical version. Output was originally 125bhp @ 1,650 rpm but this was soon raised to 150bhp @ 2,000 rpm, which was class-leading power in 1953. The model code for this version was D650HS.
The axles was similar to those of the CD650, the rear axle was a substantial underslung worm unit with the differential offset to the left.
Braking was originally full-power hydraulic on the controversial Lockheed Automotive Products
Automotive Products
Automotive Products, commonly abbreviated to AP, was an automotive industry components company set up in 1920 by Edward Boughton, Willie Emmott and Denis Brock, to import and sell American-made components to service the fleet of ex-military trucks left behind in Europe after World War I.In 1928,...
continuous flow system as employed on the CD650 and, as with that chassis, hydraulic-assistance could also be applied to the steering and the gear-selection pedal. The hydraulic system was unpopular with operators and air braking was 'quietly introduced' as an option in 1952. For the home market only one wheelbase was offered: 16ft 4ins for 30ft by 8ft bodywork. For export markets a longer 17ft 6in wheelbase (for 33ft bodies) was standard, with a 20ft 4ins version for 36ft bodies introduced for markets where that length was permitted in 1954.
Originally the transmission was a Daimler five-speed preselector type (either overdrive-top or close-ratio with direct top, with four-speed optional) but from 1957 the Daimatic direct operating semi-automatic transmission was available with four forward speeds and this, with either electro-pneumatic or direct-air change-speed mechanism soon became standard. Drive in both cases came from the engine through a remotely mounted fluid flywheel.
The radiator was mounted vertically directly behind the front wheels and the semi-elliptic leaf springs were of substantial construction.
It soon became clear that the Freeline, like the Regal IV, Royal Tiger and Guy Arab UF was over-engineered for UK operating conditions. A typical bodied 39-seat coach could weigh more than a 60-seat half-cab double-decker bus. Leyland, AEC and Guy developed lightweight chassis for the home market, but there was not to be a Daimler equivalent to the Leyland Tiger Cub
Leyland Tiger Cub
The Leyland Tiger Cub was a lightweight underfloor-engined chassis built by Leyland Motors between 1951 and 1970, most as 44-45 seat buses, with a smaller number as coaches...
, AEC Reliance
AEC Reliance
The AEC Reliance was a single-deck bus or coach chassis with a mid-underfloor-mounted engine, built by AEC in Southall, west London, England between 1953 and 1979. The name had previously been used between 1928 and 1931 for another single-deck bus chassis....
or Guy Arab LUF. Geoffrey Hillditch who ordered the last Freelines built, expressed regret that Daimler did not build such a vehicle.
Home market
Due to heavyweight of the Freeline, its sales in home market was disappointing. In Daimler’s core market in the British municipal sector sales were little short of disastrous.The Corporation fleets who purchased the Freeline were:
| Operator | Number purchased | Variant | Bodybuilder | Year(s) purchased |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SHMD* | 1 | G6HS | Northern Counties | 1952 |
| Glasgow | 1 | D650HS | Alexander Walter Alexander Coachbuilders Walter Alexander Coachbuilders was a Scottish bus coachbuilder and operater based in Falkirk.-History:Walter Alexander, notice a lack expasion by the Falkirk and District Tramways Company's especially in to Grangemouth which never hdd a tram line. In 1913 Alexander's Motor Service was created to... |
1953 |
| Cleethorpes | 2 | G6HS | Roe Charles H. Roe Charles H. Roe Ltd. was a Yorkshire coachbuilding company. It was for most of its life based at Crossgates Carriage Works, in Leeds.In 1947 it was taken over by Park Royal Vehicles. Two years later, along with its parent, it became part of Associated Commercial Vehicles in 1949, which was merged... |
1953, 1955 |
| Swindon | 4 | D650HS | Park Royal Park Royal Vehicles Dating its origins back to 1889, Park Royal Vehicles along with its Leeds-based subsidiary Charles H. Roe was one of Britain's leading coachbuilders and bus manufacturers based at Park Royal, west London, UK.-Associated Commercial Vehicles:... |
1954 |
| Coventry | 3 | G6HS | Willowbrook | 1959 |
| Great Yarmouth | 8 | G6HS | Roe | 1962, 1964 |
Total: 19 chassis.
(*The Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport and Electricity Board, the longest-named transport undertaking in England.)
Edinburgh Corporation had extended loan of LRW377 Daimler's demonstrator G6HS with a body by Duple Coachbuilders
Duple Coachbuilders
Duple was best known as a British manufacturer of coach and bus bodywork from 1919 until 1989.-History:Duple Bodies & Motors Ltd was formed in 1919 by Herbert White in Hornsey, London...
to a 30-seater dual-door standee layout with doors at front and rear but they did not buy it and when Daimler finished with it, it was sold to Samuel Ledgard
Samuel Ledgard
Samuel Ledgard was a Leeds entrepreneur who became a major West Yorkshire Independent bus operator. Following his death in 1952, his executors continued to operate the Samuel Ledgard bus company up until 1967, when it was acquired by the West Yorkshire Road Car Company.-1874 - 1952:Samuel Ledgard...
, the Leeds independent who added six more seats but frequently found the brake system problematic.
The SHMD, Glasgow and Swindon Freelines carried centre-entrance standee bus bodies with 30 to 34 seats, the Cleethorpes ones had 43 seats and were fitted with front doors. The Coventry examples were C41F coaches as Coventry, unusually for a corporation, had authorisation to hire coaches to the general public. So did Great Yarmouth, whose two batches had DP43F bodies by Roe, the second batch with Alexander-style double-curvature windscreens.
For Daimler in the first half of the 1950s there were a number of private coach operators who were impressed by the large-engined Freeline's power (25 bhp more than Leyland and AEC) and refinement which was unsurpassed, even by the standards of previous Daimlers.
Around 50 D650HS entered service in Great Britain as private-operator coaches by the middle of the decade, although sales tailed off later. The hydraulic braking system used originally provided the greatest assistance to the driver at higher road speeds, and it did not respond well to repeated stop-start-operation, this aspect of the Freeline's character perhaps explains its aptness to coaching applications, the Freeline did not attract the reputation of being under-braked which attached to the Regal IV and (especially) the vacuum-braked Royal Tiger coach.
Independent Freeline coach customers included Northern Roadways of Glasgow, Tailby & George (Blue Bus Service) of Willington, Derbyshire (who took one D650HS to add to England's second-largest fleet of CD650s and who later operated Roadliner coach TNU675F) and Burwell and District in Cambridgeshire, who were the most regular purchaser of Freeline coaches, taking five from 1953-9 with Plaxton
Plaxton
Plaxton is a builder of bus and coach vehicle bodies based in Scarborough, England.-History:The Plaxton of today is the successor to a business founded in Scarborough in 1907 by Frederick William Plaxton.-Beginnings:...
and Willowbrook bodies. Builders of home-market coaches on the Freeline included Bellhouse-Hartwell, Burlingham, Duple, Mann Egerton, Plaxton and Willowbrook.
St Helen’s Co-operative Society were the purchaser of the Mann Egerton-bodied coach. This was to the Crellin-Duplex patented 'half-deck' layout. This involved facing pairs of seats for four passengers being interlaced either two steps above or below the central gangway, which enabled a height of less than 12ft 6in (3.7m) and a seating capacity of 50, compared with a maximum of 43 for conventional single deck coaches.
Export market
Auckland Transport Board, AucklandAuckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
was the greatest adherent of the Freeline. They took 160 of the D650HS model between 1952-8, all were thirty-three feet long with front and centre doors and typically Kiwi doorless luggage boxes below the saloon floor in the wheelbase outboard of the frames. The first (their number 201, registered p2.252) was exported completely built up with a Saunders-Roe B44D body. Daimler and SARO supplied the other 89 of the initial batch as completely knocked down (CKD) kits which were assembled in New Zealand. The second batch of 70 from 1956-8 were locally bodied.
Auckland had also ordered smaller batches of AEC Regal IV, Leyland Royal Tigers and also BUT trolleybuses. The Daimlers had weaknesses, they were prone to overheat, but they were better performers than their diesel rivals and became the backbone of the Auckland fleet until the early 1970s.
Other export markets for the Freeline included South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. The buses for Bombay were the only examples of the five-cylinder G5HS model built.
Fake Freelines
In 1968 CCFL in LisbonLisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
received 26 underfloor-engined single-deckers which were described as Daimler CVU6LX. They were actually Guy Victories powered by Gardner 6HLX engines, Jaguar having decided to badge-engineer in this way as Daimler was the better known brand in Portugal and these buses were delivered along with a consignment of Fleetlines for the same operator.
Preservation
A 1953 Daimler Freeline has been preserved at AucklandAuckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
's Museum of Transport and Technology
Museum of Transport and Technology
The Museum of Transport and Technology is a museum located in Western Springs, Auckland, New Zealand. It is located close to the Western Springs Stadium, Auckland Zoo and the Western Springs Park. The museum has large collections of civilian and military aircraft and other land transport vehicles...
. This bus was formerly Auckland Transport Board No.150 (Daimler chassis no.25081).
Two of the 31 Daimler Freelines that went to Western Australia have been preserved by the Bus Preservation Society of Western Australia at their Whiteman Park facility in suburban Perth. These are from the batch of 20 Freelines delivered to the Western Australian Government Tramways (WAGT) in 1957/58. They are WAGT fleet numbers 143 and 147 which became Metropolitan (Perth) Transport Trust (MTT) numbers 295 and 299 when the WAGT was absorbed into the MTT.
Sources
- Townsin, Daimler, Shepperton 2000
- Kaye, Buses and Coaches Since 1945, London 1968
- Hillditch, Looking At Buses, Shepperton 1979
- Hillditch, A Further Look At Buses, Shepperton 1981
- Lumb, Charles H.Roe (includes Optare), Shepperton 1999
- Classic Bus