Description
Offered for sale is my 1980 open top Bristol VR, registration FDL 681V.
New to Southern Vectis in June 1980, 681 spent her entire service life on the Isle of Wight, being given a new lease of life when converted to open top in 2000 to operate on sightseeing tours, before finally being withdrawn at the end of 2008. She was then sold to a dealer and placed into storage until I purchased her for preservation in March 2014.
Since then, a lot of time and money has been spent bringing her up to the condition seen in the photographs. Some of the more major works undertaken to date have included:
Replacement of the entire upper deck floor and a new one-piece floor covering laid.
Upper deck seats refurbished including new wood, foam and covers.
Upper deck seat frames completely stripped and repainted.
Brand new kingpins fitted, and front axle refurbished including re-machined bearings.
Front nearside spring refurbished.
6 new tyres fitted in 2014, and less than 5k miles covered since.
681 has had a class V MOT every year in my ownership (the most recent being valid until June 2019), and has never had any issues either getting through MOTs or in general.
The Gardener engine pulls well and is remarkably smoke free, the gearbox is strong as are the brakes, and she drives really well.
I also have a substantial history / maintenance records file for the bus which covers right through from the delivery paperwork in 1980 to date which will be included in the sale.
Only reason for selling is that we need the storage space for a new project so unfortunately something has to go.
Viewing welcome from serious buyers, the bus is located near Basingstoke.
