The Daimler Roadliner was two years late into production, Jaguar's
plan to build the engine under licence failed and Cummins started to
produce it at its Shotts, Lanarkshire factory. The SRC6 chassis was
agreeably neat looking and PMT's first (2400EH, numbered SN1000)
earned Daimler an official letter of congratulation from the union
branch operating it. Maybe it was feather –bedded but it does not
seem to have discouraged PMT or anyone else from ordering the SRC6.
Why? Were the production versions inclined to fail sooner? Atkinson
of Preston used the same engine in motorway gritters for the
Ministry of Transport which were very hard-worked and reliable, but
non-stop motorway work is a different proposition to stop-start bus
work. The Roadliner's murky reputation began soon after production
started. 132 buses were sold to UK customers bodied by seven
Coachbuilders. Production had ceased by 1970.

East Lancashire and Neepsend's unlucky thirteen were three for
Eastbourne and ten for Chesterfield. Both fleets went on to buy
Panthers.

After the two-year delay PMT took twenty-three (out of an initial
production batch of forty-seven) with Marshall coachwork. Pretty
soon, PMT's mechanics were cursing the bus the platform staff had
praised. The next ten were deferred. As well as its 24 for PMT
Marshall also bodied the initial demonstrator.

The remaining 34 Roadliner buses for PMT were Plaxton Derwents. The
first twenty-four, like ten for West Riding and one for AA Motor
Services (Dodds) had Cummins V6-200 engines. The last ten for PMT
and a Daimler demonstrator (which later went to Oxford) were the
only Roadliner buses fitted from new with the Perkins V8: 510 engine
of 170bhp. With 45 buses (and the lions share of coaches) to its
credit, Plaxton led the field in bodying the Roadliner.

Some Perkins V8s were fitted to other Roadliners after they were
built. Dennis and ERF used this engine in several hundred fire
engines where, normally fitted to a torque converter, it performed
well. But then again, full-tilt emergency call-out work is a
different proposition…

The balance of Belfast's 1968 intake were eighteen Potters bodied
Roadliners. A return to the Fleetline was on the cards.

Although Cummins were building a factory there Darlington's first
(1967) batch of twelve Roe bodied Roadliners were also their last. A
quantum leap from the preceding CCG5/Roe double-deckers, they were
followed by single-deck Fleetlines.

Strachans' eight Roadliners consisted of five for Wolverhampton and
three for Sunderland. This brought their total to Sunderland's
design to 80 buses- 48% of their output. One Wolverhampton bus is
preserved.

At the time Willowbrook did most of the Duple group's export
business. It bodied overseas Roadliners including 28 for Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada. However their only home market examples were eleven
for Bournemouth, where they offered stepless boarding like that
resorts Fleetlines and Atlanteans (even if the Royal Tigers and
Tiger Cubs they replaced worked rather better). One Bournemouth
Roadliner survives and an Edmonton example is believed extant too.

The Roadliner's reputation crumbling as examples arrived with
purchasers, Daimler's forward planners must have scratched their
heads for all of half a second before one of them remembered
Birmingham (as part of a standardisation attempt) had some lightly-
modified Fleetlines fitted with single deck bodies, these sat only
37, but the forthcoming 33ft model could be modified to enable
seating over the engine. Thus in 1966 the SRG6 Fleetline was born.
It could not have been foreseen then that continuing problems with
the Roadliner would lead to a longer Fleetline that snapped the
bodies it carried, nor that the need for development cash in the
Jaguar Cars parent would lead to a takeover by British car giant
BMC, which was tottering itself; so much so the Government persuaded
Leyland Motor Corporation to buy it. By 1968 both the long Fleetline
(SRG6-36) and British Leyland had happened. 358 single-deck
Fleetlines were sold to 1973.

The SRG6-36 prototype carried a two-door panoramic window Alexander
W-type body. Alexander's other Fleetline single decks were also 36ft
dual door W-types. Twenty-five for Dundee, thirty-nine for the
Northern General group and nine for Yorkshire Traction had short
window bays. Twenty-one for PMT and one for City of Oxford were
panoramic like the prototype.

East Lancashire bodied nine 33ft SRG6s for Bury and five SRG6-36 for
Barrow. Within the aesthetic parameters of East Lancs' `style' of
the time Bury's were near top and Barrow's bottom of the scale.
Fowlers of Leyland were the bodybuilding subsidiary of Fishwick,
independent bus operator of the same town. They started in 1969 with
a body on the final PSUC1/11 Tiger Cub. This they followed with
three PSU4 Leopards and the final PDR1/3 Atlantean, their only
double-decker. All these were for Fishwick. Then they sold their
only body to an outside customer, this was a Seddon IV: 236 and
easily their best looking. Finally and again for Fishwick they
bodied five Leyland 680-powered Daimler Fleetline SRL6-36, these
were also the last of their line. Fowlers' bodies always looked
like a collection of bin-ends, job lots and room-sized remnants.
Anyone who calls the Leyland National `ugly' `unstyled',
or `utilitarian' should look at these Leyland products before
slurring Workington's finest.

Marshall bodied the initial twenty-four single-deck Fleetlines for
Birmingham. These were 31ft long 37-seaters and looked like cut-down
double decks. One is preserved. Birmingham went on to buy AEC Swifts
with both engine sizes and Strachans-bodied Ford R192s. Subsequent
Marshall Fleetlines were six SRG6-33 for South Shields, delivered to
Tyneside PTE, and forty-five SRG6-36 twelve to Darlington, three to
Yorkshire Traction and thirty for Maidstone & District. Unlike the
Birmingham buses these 51 later buses were dual-door.

Park Royal's sole batch of single-deck Fleetlines were thirty
SRG6LXB-36 with 45 seats and dual doors for Leeds. These were among
the first buses fitted with the 180bhp Gardner engine. Park Royal
also bodied a lot of double-deck Fleetlines.

Pennine secured an order for only two Fleetlines. These were for
Halifax (109-110 KCP379-80G) their 33ft B45F bodies showed an
interesting mix of Pennine and Halifax styling.

Potters one batch of SRG6LX-36 were thirty for Belfast (Alexander
took over before they were built). After that the Northern Irish
capital went double-deck again for a while.

Roe's largest share of Fleetline single-decks was twenty-four SRG6LX-
36s for Darlington, with B45D bodies, one of which survives. Two
SRG6LX-33 B45F buses were sold to Huddersfield.

Willowbrook bodied the first Fleetline SRG6- four for Grimsby-
Cleethorpes in 1966-67, these and three 1968 buses for Burton-on-
Trent were the only examples of the 120bhp SRG6LW-33 built, one from
each fleet is preserved. SRG6LX-33s were nine for Halifax, five for
Derby, four for Rochdale (including a former demonstrator) and two
for Rotherham. Northern and its associates had thirty-eight SRG6LX-
36s and Northampton ended a six-year order drought, recovering from
the end of CVG6 production, with twenty SRL6-36s, this was a Leyland
680-powered option available from 1970. The Road Transport Industry
Training Board also added two Willowbrook bodied SRG6-36 to their
Fleet of dedicated training vehicles.

It's clear that the Birmingham Fleetlines inspired Great Yarmouth's
Management whose latest double-deckers were Leyland Atlantean
PDR1/2s with Daimler Fleetline gearboxes and Albion Lowlander
axles. They got Marshall to body three such as B37F saloons in
1967/8. Two of these survive. Like Birmingham, they then bought AEC
Swifts.

I imagine someone in Birkenhead's management, when talking to
Northern Counties about more double decks said something like "and
we'd like two singles on Atlantean too, but do the job properly."
Like SRG Fleetlines the Birkenhead Atlanteans had seating above the
engine. They were both 33ft PDR2/1s to B40D layout and were
delivered to Merseyside PTE in 1970.

By this time folk at Portsmouth must have been kicking
themselves. "This is what we should have thought of when we ended up
getting Tiger Cubs, never mind faffing around with Leopards, Panther
Cubs and Swifts." So Portsmouth had twelve PDR2/1 with 33ft B40D
bodies by Pennine then returned to double-decker Atlanteans.