The MHD Partnership goes out on a creative limb to conceive a bold new brand image for one of the greatest names of the bygone British bus industry — minus a surplus consonant and vowel
RIBBLE TO RIBL
Ribble Motor Services was a founding stone of today’s bus industry, a territorial operator whose red and cream buses served most of Lancashire and whose cream and red coaches — some branded Standerwick — travelled widely on express services and extended tours.
It came into existence in 1919, based in Preston and took its name from the river that flows through the city on a 75mile course from North Yorkshire to Lytham.
For almost 50 years it was part of the BET group, passing into state ownership in 1967 ahead of the creation of the National Bus Company in January 1969. When NBC went corporate three years later, Ribble’s buses became poppy red and white.
It was split up in 1986, losing territory to neighbouring Cumberland and the new North Western Road Car. Privatisation came late, in a March 1988 management buyout that sold out to Stagecoach the following year.
Stagecoach offloaded the east Lancashire operations to Blazefield in 2001 and eventually dropped the Ribble name.
Time, then, for us to challenge The…
