Fifty Years ago at the Show

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It’s fifty years ago this year that the design of double deck buses was turned on its head – with the development of a chassis that would revolutionise all that would follow it.

The fact that two major English municipals – Plymouth Citybus & Blackpool Metro Coastlines – celebrated the type’s final withdrawal last month is testimony indeed to the chassis’ success.

That chassis was Leyland’s Atlantean PDR1 prototype, which first appeared at the 1956 London Earl's Court commercial motor show. The PDR1 featured a transverse rear engine, something unheard of at a time of half-cab designs, with engines next to the driver ahead of the front axle.

The prototype PDR1 was a semi-integral, produced in conjunction with Metro Cammel Weymann, though it wasn’t long before it was offered as a traditional chassis, the PDR1/1.

The 1956 prototype grew from two Leyland experimental vehicles, known as Low-Loaders, both with rear engines but also with the conventional rear doors of the time. It wasn’t till the 1956 Atlantean that the rear-engine-with-front-entrance opposite the driver became a reality, something that has become established ever since. It coincided with new regulations enabling 30 ft double decks.

Gradually increasing Atlantean sales were given a major boost ten years after the prototype’s first appearance when in 1966 operators were legally able to run one person operated double decks. The need to cut operating costs with driver-only buses cemented the popularity of the Atlantean, but it also spawned competing chassis. Nevertheless, the PDR1/1’s successor as the Atlantean AN68 was destined to become the most popular rear engined double deck ever.

Photo: with MCW bodywork, Wallasey Corporation no.1, the first production Leyland Atlantean of all, courtesy of Omnibuses' northern correspondent