Millar’s TA LES
Alan Millar’s sideways view of the bus scene
Please send any stories, photos, (digital, prints or slides), cuttings and other information of off beat bus matters direct to: Buses, PO Box 14644, Leven, KY9 1WX Or e-mail: alan.millar@keypublishing.com
Have you heard the one about the modern bus that pretends to be a classic London Routemaster? Specifically, have you heard the distinctive AEC driveline inside something at least 40 years newer than the last Routemaster to emerge from the Park Royal factory in 1968?
I refer to a television commercial from Cadbury for its Dairy Milk chocolate, which over 30 or 60sec shows a small boy riding home by bus with his mother, clutching said chocolate bar and in an act of kindness offering it to an unhappy looking teenage girl.
The bus, as is evident from this still from the advertisement, is a modern vehicle, possibly a single-decker — I’m guessing a product of Alexander Dennis or Wrightbus — with what looks like a First Bus interior with green and other pastel coloured fittings. But the sound effects that accompany it replace the blandness of an efficient 21st century torque converter transmission and small litre capacity low-emission engine with a…
