More VR Celebrations

 40 years since the prototype VRs first appeared
 25 years since the type was discontinued
 10 days till the end of standard VRs with First Devon & Cornwall

First Devon & Cornwall’s predecessor, Western National (then including Devon General) purchased a total of 244 brand new Bristol VRs – making the company the largest purchaser of new Bristol VRs ever. Mind you, that statistic was something of a closely run thing, with Crosville ordering 243.

The first of Western National’s VRs arrived in 1969, being Series 1 and with flat fronted ECW bodies. The ECW bodystyle matured during the Series 2 and on to Series 3, to the more familiar and certainly better looking variant, with a bowed, slightly wrap-around BET style windscreen familiar today.

Of the familiar ECW body, the West Country Historic Omnibus & Transport Trust calls it probably “just as much a design icon as London’s Routemaster”. As many would disagree with that statement as agree with it. What is evident is that the ECW body designed in collaboration for the Bristol double deck chassis is very handsome. This is as much to do with the low height arrangement (the original design pre-requisite and something more-or-less unique to Bristol deckers) as well as the design cues from ECW double deck products dating back to the Bristol K, KSW, LD and FLF – in other words from the 1940s and 1950s.

The East Lancs Olympus or the Enviro400 may be things of contemporary beauty but the VR design, reflecting its antecedents, is truly a modern classic.

When the last closed-top VR at First Devon & Cornwall operates in Penzance on 10 December (the last journey starting the day before but operating past midnight), it will end an era that goes back to the domed roof of the Bristol K Type, familiar in Cornwall for almost 70 years.

See also In Celebration of the VR