The cat's whiskers: that's Leyland's atest
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The looks and performance of the Royal Tiger Doyen have found a firm supporter in Noel Milner and he foresees as a result an upturn in the integral market. Brian Weatherly provides the pictures
AS SOON AS I saw the Leyland Royal Tiger Doyen at a press preview at Ullswater in the Lake District I felt that here was a coach that could change the fortunes of the British coachbuilding industry. It has the looks and specifications of the current Europeans, and its price allows it to compete with them strongly.
A brief spell behind the wheel at Ullswater indicated that the beast's performance equalled its looks and I asked for more time with the vehicle.
Leyland Bus obliged by inviting me to drive a prototype from the Charles Roe plant in Leeds to Brighton, where the coach was to make its public debut. Unfortunately, as has been well said, even the best laid plans can go wrong and I had to watch the final touches being applied to the manual gearbox coach—less than twelve hours and well over 200 miles away from where it was to be revealed to an expectant and important audience of coach operators.
There was only time for me to have a pleasant drive around the more rural parts of the Leeds hinterland, but this was enough to reinforce my initial impression of the prototype semi-automatic coach's potential.
My next meetings with the model came at Brighton, where I drove the manual machine, and appropriately for a Royal Tiger, at London Zoo, where I drove the semiautomatic trim prototype.
It was to be shown to some potential customers here and then I was to drive it back to Leyland in Lancashire.
The driving position is pleasingly high but still allows the passengers to see over the driver's head and enjoy as good a view as in some competing machines.
I liked the instrument and control arrangement, which had everything well in reach and clearly visible when driving.
I had no problems with the prototype cowled instrument surround which will not be fitted to production models. Although the revcounter did not have "colour bands" to help the driver keep the engine at its most economical operating speeds, Leyland Bus says that production vehicles will.
At high speed on the motorway wind noise is noticeable but not excessive. There were no draughts.
The ride and handling of the lightly laden coach were good, as was the road-holding.
The Hydracyclic gearchange lever by the driver's right hand was easy to reach and light to use although the technique for changing gear was different from that required with the Pneumocyclic Leopards that I had driven before. I felt I had to pause slightly longer than normal between changing gears before moving the lever to let the revs die down completely so as to avoid the engine revving while in neutral I also found it difficult to hear the engine. But these problems would probably be overcome as I became more familiar with the coach.
As traffic and weather conditions worsened on the return drive I noticed that I seemed to develop a tendency to overcorrect the steering. A more relaxed grip on the small Leyland wheel cured me of this problem, which I put down to the combination of my tension increasing as I
needed to concentrate harder and the lighter than normal integral powered steering and smaller than normal steering wheel.
I was very impressed with the wide speed range of the large windscreen wipers, which offered a better than normal sweep of the large curved windscreen. That was until a windscreen wiper problem caused the wiper to leave the screen. I have been told that this has been rectified in production models, but it caused me to cut short my drive at Crewe, but did not totally detract from my favourable impressions.
I am still most definitely "sold" on Leyland's integral high-floor coach. It has everything that is necessary to lure passengers back to coaching again.