PRESERVATION UPDATE
Judged best visiting vehicle at the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum’s open day on 19 May was a former Road Transport Industry Training Board Leyland Leopard painted in the distinctive yellow, maroon and cream of Venture Transport.
Now owned by Dave Herron and Gordon Noble, TMS 585H was one of two PSU3/1R Leopards with Alexander Y-type bodies built for the RTITB in 1970 and used by its Motec centres at High Ercall, Shropshire and Livingston, West Lothian. These and its other buses were painted plain white.
Venture, based in Consett, Co. Durham, bought 44 Y-type Leopards between 1963 and 1970, when Northern General bought the business and they made up half of the fleet. The same preservationists already own one of them, 1963-built 249 (6249 UP) with singlepiece coach door.
Like Venture’s later Y-types, the ex-RTITB Leopard has a jack-knife folding door. Its seats, previously in black vinyl, have been retrimmed with a moquette design close to the pattern used by Venture. It has been given fictitious fleetnumber 317 and former Co. Durham registration number UPT 517 first issued around 1957.
Also visiting the museum with a new identity was FFV 447D, a Plaxton Panoramabodied AEC Reliance 2U3RA…
