The Plaxton Paragon and Plaxton Panther are closely related designs of coach

Coach (vehicle)

A coach is a large motor vehicle, a type of bus, used for conveying passengers on excursions and on longer distance express coach scheduled transport between cities - or even between countries...

 bodywork

Car body style

Automobiles' body styles are highly variable. Some body styles remain in production, while others become less common or obsolete. They may or may not correlate to a car's price, size or intended market classification. The same car model might be available in multiple body styles comprising a...

 built by 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:...

 in Scarborough, England, since 1999, and still in production as of 2009.

For part of their design life, Plaxton was part of TransBus International, during which time the designs were officially referred to as the TransBus Paragon and TransBus Panther.

The Paragon and Panther replaced the Premiere and Excalibur

Plaxton Premiere

The Plaxton Premiere, Plaxton Excalibur and Plaxton Prima were closely related designs of coach bodywork built by Plaxton.The Premiere and Excalibur were introduced in 1991 as replacements for the Paramount. The Premiere was the mainstream design, available in the same two heights as its predecessor...

 respectively, with the Paragon being the standard and the Panther the premium specification coach. Externally, the main distinguishing feature between the two models is the front end, which is more upright on the Paragon, although the difference is not as pronounced as that between the Premiere and Excalibur.

One important new feature of the designs was the use of a stainless steel structure, to resist corrosion and prolong vehicle life expectancy.

The Generation 2 Panther will be launched at Euro Bus Expo at Birmingham in November 2010 . It shares some of the external design with the Plaxton Elite

Plaxton Elite

The Plaxton Elite is a coach body unveiled at the Euro Bus Expo at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham in November 2008. It went into production in late 2008. Each vehicle costs an estimated £780,000...

 and will comply with the new European WVTA requirements as well as the older domestic Certificate of initial fitness (COIF) standards. New 12.8m version will be available on Volvo B9R with 53 seats. The Generation 2 15m Panther will be built on the Volvo B13RT for Megabus with 65 seats and the latest PLS lift. Production of the Paragon will cease afterwards.

Body numbering

Since the 1989 build season, Plaxton's body numbering system has used a letter to identify the body style. The following letters are used for the Paragon and Panther:

• L Panther
• T Paragon