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Title: The glass coach Pages: 65 - 67   
Author: Richard Carr Text: The glass coach Plaxton's new coach looks as if it is mainly glass, but in fact the glazed area is similar to that on previous coaches. Richard Carr describes how this is achieved and how the glass, and a power operated door, raise standards of safety. One of the firms which has done most to raise the standards of coach design is PLaxton's of Scarborough, whose new Panorama Elite is just coming into service. The company specialises in the top end of the market, building bodies for coaches with more than 45 seats on Bristol, AC, Leyland and Daimler chassis, as well as those by Ford and Bedford. Plaxton's are also notable for being the first coach builders to employ a consultant industrial designer on a regular basis. They appointed Ogle Design Ltd in 1963, just when the company went public, raising capital for greater production. Since then, Plaxton's have increased their share of the British market and now build more coaches (over 800 this year) than anyone else. The Panorama Elite looks very different from previous coaches produced by Plaxton, let alone those of the competitors like Duple, whose latest model was described in DESIGN 237/54-57. For the first impression given by the Panorama Elite is that it is square and slabsided, with acres of glass all round; and the second is that it is the longest and tallest coach on the road. But in fact, its length is very little different that of previous models, its height is exactly the same, and the area of glass has been only slightly changed. The one major innovation apartfrom the curved glass for the side windows - does not concern the shape at all, but the power-operated passenger door. On many coaches - especially those designed for single manning - power operated doors are becoming standard and, where they are used, Ministry of Transport regulations state that they must have protected edges to prevent injury to passengers who might be trapped when the doors close. In Plaxton's case, a power-operated door was specially designed by the company's engineers, instead of being a conversion of an existing door, and was given an extruded rubber seal around its edge which cannot cause injury. The one feature retained from the previous designs is that the door folds in such a way that its inside always faces the passengers, so that no matter how dirty the outside of the door may be, they cannot rub against it as they enter the coach. However, Plaxton's then decided that, having developed the soft edge for the power operated door, it should be used on manually operated doors as well, and this introduces a new standard of safety that must surely become obligatory in the future. Visually, the Panorama Elite represents a refinement of the design principles laid down in 1963. At that time, Plaxton had a good reputation as builders of strictly conventional coaches, though the external cladding of the coaches was broken up into many different panels which did not relate to each other or create a unified shape, and (caption) Doors, whether power-operated or not, open so that the outside swings away from passengers; rubber edges cannot cause injury. there were the usual broken waistbands and clumsy radiator grilles. Internally, the coaches had rather heavy seats which obscured the passengers' sight lines and were claustrophobic, and the components around the driver and along the ceilings were a motley lot of one-off items instead of being neat assemblies related to a comprehensive design scheme. Ogle's first job, in fact, carried out on the Panorama Elite's predecessors, was to tidy up the interior and redesign the seating so that it became possible for the driver and his passengers to see beyond the length of a coach. However, the major refinements incorporated on the Panorama Elite concern the exterior. All the horizontal lines of the coach have been straightened out to avoid kinks and visual contradictions and make the body panels easier to manufacture. Since they are now all rectangular, difficult cutting operations have been eliminated and wastage substantially reduced; and since the waistline of the coach has been dropped slightly as well as straightened out, all the hinges for luggage and spare wheel lockers on the side of the coach can be located along a stainless steel moulding and so effectively concealed. The same logic has been applied to the back of the coach, where the drip line luggage has been lengthened so that, besides incorporating the hinges of the boot door, it wraps around the rear lights and emphasises the width of the coach. Concentrating on horizontal lines, however, though contributing to the coach's further slablike appearance, has less effect than the windows, which are really responsible for the new look. These, like the waistline, have been dropped slightly, but are now curved and allowed to taper at a higher point into the roof, which makes the roof seem muc narrower and creates an illusion of height. Inside, the result of taking the windows further into the roof, as well as setting them into a white plastics and rubber moulded window surround, has been to create a feeling of light and airiness. The windows at the front and rear of the coach have also been cleverly designed because, by dividing both in two, it has been possible to use window panels of the same dimension and yet flatten the rear window so that the rearseat passengers do not have to be cramped into the corners of the coach. Identical panels make maintenance easier and mean that, should the windscreen be shattered - possibly on a long distance European tour- a panel from the rear window can be used as a temporary, but essential, replacement. Although the Panorama Elite is basically an exterior redesign, work has still to be done on the front of the coach, where the grille has been carried over from previous models. Inside, the roof, like the sides of the coach, has been divided into rectangular sections to facilitate manufacture and assembly, and the light and speaker panels at either side of the toplights have been given the same dimensions for the same reasons. Another saving has been made by combining the punkah louvres and light units under the luggage rack into a single unit which costs less than when the two services were fitted as separate items. Similar changes have also been made to the driver's control panel. Each of Plaxton's new coach designs takes the company's manufacturing techniques further away from wood and one step nearer the day when coach bodies will be all steel, which will bring them more in line with Continental safety regulations. For already, a few coaches are exported to Canada, Jamaica and Eastern Europe: and if Britain enters the Common Market, European sales could become really important. (caption) Panorama Elite's interior has redesigned seating introduced on earlier coaches, which allows the driver to see down the coach's full length. It also has a completely new punkah louvre and light unit, below left, and ceiling light and speaker units, below right. The coach side, opposite, has been improved by straightening all horizontal lines and locating locker hinges along the stainless steel moulding. At the rear, above, the boot door hinges are located along the drip line, and this has been extended so that it wraps around the rear lights, left. |
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