STA Volvo B59 Protoype

[Tim Williams]

This wonderful photograph was taken by the late Neil Mackintosh - he was a great bloke and photographer.
The picture was taken on the 16th March 1977 in Victoria Square, Adelaide city centre - the body is very attractive and the last in line of that Adelaide style, but that body style did not take full advantage of the more or less low floor chassis of the B59. I saw B59's in Stockholm and Helsinki, with Finnish bodies, that would not look out of place with our current low floor buses - with wide low stepless entries.

[busrider]

The first of 310... What happened to the last 3?

[Tim Williams]

Yes, the possible missing 3 - a very good question, but I haven't got the answer, only a couple of suggestions:

1. Perhaps a bit of grandstanding - 310 buses coming sounds better than the odd/unusual number of 307.
2. The STA may in fact have purchased up to 310 chassis as companies, including the MTT used to buy one or two additional chassis, with a large order, as an initial source of spare parts - it would be interesting to know if it was cost effective!.

However those two points are pure guesses.

[The Phonj]

I have a feeling that point two may be on the money; I can't recall the source, but seem to remember reading that there were three spare chassis for the B59 order. As you mention, companies used to buy additional chassis for use as spares. A good case in point was the STA's Mercedes O305 ordered with a Porter body: STA fleet no. 240/7000. The original chassis was dropped while being unloaded in Perth, but thankfully the MTT (Perth) had a spare O305 chassis hanging up on the wall in their workshops. This was retrieved and used for the STA. For full details; refer to http://perthbus.info/report.php?vid=STA240