50TH PLAXTON PRIMO RECEIVES A WARM WELCOME IN THE VALLEY

Plaxton’s iconic small bus has recently chalked up it’s fiftieth sale with the milestone vehicle entering service with Taf Valley Coaches/Bysiau Cwm Taf in West Wales. Chosen by proprietors Clive and Heather Edwards for a demanding rural contract service where it has replaced a step entrance minibus.

Taf Valley Coaches use the Primo on their Carmarthenshire contracted service 224 from Whitland to Carmarthen serving the villages away from the main A40 trunk road. Clive explained, "The vehicle was what we needed for the service, we’re keen on Plaxton products, we know who to talk to at Plaxton and the after sales service is always good from them." The vehicle is on the road over twelve hours a day, six days a week and is proving popular with passengers and drivers alike "The Primo has been very well received" commented Clive, "The passengers love it for its comfort and easy access, and the drivers like it, particularly the power available which enables it to tackle the steep hills locally with no problems at all".

Operating from a modern depot high above the valley south of Whitland, Taf Valley Coaches’ fourteen vehicle fleet undertakes a variety of work from school contracts to its own programme of inclusive holidays. The company was founded in 1990 and has operated many Plaxton vehicles, the current fleet includes Premieres, Panthers, a Cheetah, and a Beaver in addition to the Primo.

The integrally built Plaxton Primo minibus has rapidly established itself in a market where many thousands of step entrance minibuses are still operating well beyond their expected service lives, often in areas where previous low-floor vehicles were an impractical alternative. The requirements of an attractive, manoeuvrable and reliable vehicle with capacity for up to 40 passengers, are the basic criteria around which Primo is based and Plaxton Sales and Marketing Director, Kevin Wood is confident that the product is destined for greater things, “Primo is practically unique in offering so many of the features of bigger buses yet it’s actually smaller than many comparable step entrance buses. It has the smallest turning circle of any bus in it’s class, the entrance is directly alongside the driver, it’s fully wheelchair friendly and almost 70% of the seating is accessible without climbing any steps, it’s the perfect package for replacing minibuses of the last generation.”

The Taf Valley Coaches vehicle is to the standard 7.9m Plaxton Primo specification with a Cummins ISBe 4 cylinder engine driving through an Allison 2000 fully automatic gearbox and Raba Z final drive, ingeniously packaged at the rear to enable a 70% low floor area. The Primo features 20 forward facing Esteban Urban 90 seats, seven inward facing seats plus one wheelchair bay with tip-up seat and can carry up to 16 standees. The vehicle was supplied by Mistral and is finished in white with bold bilingual Bysiau Cwm Taf/Taf Valley Coaches branding in blue and grey.

Caption:

Taf Valley Coaches/Bysiau Cwm Taf proprietors Clive and Heather Edwards (Centre) take delivery of the 50th Plaxton Primo from Plaxton’s Nigel Gamble (Left) and Mistral’s Rick Betton (right).

ENDS

December 2006