DELUCE COACHLINES ATTEMPT AT BENDY BUSES

I picked up a Volvo B10M bendy bus from Adelaide and drove it to Wangaratta (Deluxe's base) and Geoff  (the boss) asked me what I thought of it... "Bloody f..ching terrible", the ride was terrible and it was underpowered, but that was just the start of its problems. A few days later it was put onto a regular service to Sydney but it was stopped at the NSW border by the Police and no passengers were allowed to travel in the rear section! Then it was scheduled to go from Melbourne to Perth, there was a big send off from Melbourne with the owner handing out glasses of champagne to passengers while moving through the city (for which I gave him a very hard time as alcohol on the buses was a continious problem), all went well through Adelaide at around 9pm and out into the wilderness until passengers in he rear noticed a problem and as the vehilce came to a halt the rear section came adrift of the front. They were about 10 hours from Adelaide and of course it took two (chartered) normal coaches to ferry all the passengers on to Perth, another 23 hours further.
All in all a gigantic wase of time and effort and from that time on all interest was in the Setra Double Deckers which we got twenty but the Mercedes motors were not up to it and it wasn't until Deluxe had Denning build 20 Deckers with the GM 8V92TTA and Alison auto that they were on a winner. Still had trouble at Roadhouses etc with the larger number of people.