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Volvo threat to BL in city-bus market
Page 24
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WITH THE B58 coach chassis rapidly becoming a major and established force on the UK private coach market, Volvo Bus (Great Britain) Ltd now plans to provide an alternative to the Leyland National in the urban bus market.
Volvo's immediate plan is to offer the successful B58 as a low-floor city bus. It can already offer such suitable transmission options as fully automatic Voith, Allison and ZF gearboxes, and it claims that it also has solved the floor-height problem.
Wadham Stringer's new Vanguard bus body, first shown on the Leyland Cub chassis as a midibus at the Scottish Motor Show, could provide the basis for this lowfloor city bus as could the Marshall Camair 80 body.
Volvo says that by using outriggers and fitting the body directly on the chassis, as low a floor as 79cm (31in) at the front platform level, can be achieved.
In the long term, Volvo can also offer its air-sprung BlOR rear-engined chassis for British operators. A righthand-drive version assembled in Scotland, similar to vehicles already being supplied to operators in Australia, could be available if the demand exists.
A new simpler rear axle for the British Volvo B55 double decker is also being developed. The axle will be based on the FIO lorry rear axle and will have an offset differential. It will replace the hub reduction axle in use currently.