GUY SPECIAL THE VIXEN THAT WASN'T A VIXEN

摘要

The GS classification of London Transport's bonneted country bus of the 1950s stood for Guy Special. However, Guy Motors called it a Vixen even though it was unlike all of its other Vixens. Guy built chassis individually to customers' specifications. They were more expensive then the equivalent products of Austin, Bedford, Commer, Ford and Morris but were more durable, had lower running costs and a longer life that repaid the higher cost. When London Transport asked Guy -which had impressed the organisation with its wartime Arab double-deckers - to quote for a chassis suitable for a one-man-operated bus in 1952, it submitted a quotation based on a 14ft 9in (4,445mm) wheelbase Vixen chassis powered by a 55hp four-cylinder Perkins P.4 diesel engine with normal control and traditional polished aluminum radiator. That would allow a 26-seat body to be fitted, the maximum permitted on a bus operated without a conductor, the limit having been raised from 20 in 1937.