British Atlanteans

The Leyland Atlantean was in production from 1958 until 1986 and around 15,300 buses of the type were built over this period. Whilst over 3,500 were exported abroad, the remainder gave sterling service to over a hundred different operators in the UK. These ranged from the transport authorities of Glasgow and Liverpool, both of which accumulated large numbers of the type, to the small independent operators which bought them in penny numbers. The progression of this revolutionary bus, which placed the engine at the rear of the vehicle, went through an exhaustive development program throughout the 1950s. The first production models were bodied by Alexander’s, Metro-Cammell and Weymanns with the former providing the bodies for a third of the home market. In total eighteen different body builders were used by the mixture of operators with three builders completing just one bus each. Variations included low bridge models, all of which were supplied by Weymann in the early years, and coach-seated examples such as those also built by Weymann for the Ribble/Standerwick group for their express motorway services to London. A left-hand drive model was also specified by a number of overseas operators. Originally designated by Leyland as the PDR1/1, there were a number of variations throughout the 1960s. Towards the end of the decade the bus was substantially re-engineered and was redesignated as the AN68 (with progressive variations), the first of which came off the production line in May 1972 and it proved to be even more reliable than the earlier versions. The last of the type were generally taken out of service in the 2010s but many examples still survive in open-top form and can be seen around the UK. Devon General was the only operator to acquire a batch of convertible open-top Atlanteans from new.