REVIEWS
Title: Advancing in a Forward Direction
Author: Stewart J. Brown
Publisher: Fawndoon Books
ISBN: 978-0-9934831-1-0
Specification: 255mm x 220mm, 192pp, hardback
Price: £45
The cover price of this book — a comprehensive survey of the vehicles bought postwar by the Scottish Bus Group — may be high, but the depth and breadth of information and the quality of design and picture reproduction justify every penny.
Those familiar with Stewart Brown’s previous books will know that one of their hallmarks is his intelligent use of statistics, and there are plenty of them here. Between 1946 and the sale of its last subsidiary in 1991, he says SBG bought 11,166 buses and coaches new from 21 chassis makers and around 30 bodybuilders, acquired 1,171 of 23 different makes from 52 operators taken over in the same period and purchased around 675 more secondhand, half of them Guy Arabs, AEC/Park Royal Routemasters and DMSclass Fleetlines from London Transport.
Over those 45 years, Leyland accounted for 38% of the new vehicle intake, Alexander for 60% of the bodywork (it also rebodied another 200) and its Y-type single-deck body — built from 1961 to 1982 — alone accounted for 24%.
Leyland enters the story in an even mor…
