HUNDRED YEARS AGO THE FIRST BRISTOL BUS WAS BUILT
The Bristol Tramways & Carriage Company Ltd. was probably one of the first bus operators in the world building its own material. In 1908, two years before the LGOC began the production of the famous B-type bus which formed the basis for the later AEC marque, Bristol Tramways & Carriage manufactured its first bus.
In the spring of 1908 the fledgling manufacturing division of the Bristol Tramways & Carriage Company put into service the first motor vehicle of their own construction, having been dissatisfied with the poor performances of the first buses acquired from other manufacturers. The acceptance and success of the early Bristol vehicles prompted the parent company to establish a purpose built manufacturing site in Bath Road in Brislington, which opened in 1913. The company went on to produce vehicles on that site for the next seventy years and in 1955 they became known as Bristol Commercial Vehicles Ltd, a more or less nationalised manufacturer that also built trucks for a couple of years, mainly for British Road Services and its subsidiaries.
Initially all Bristol vehicles were equipped with petrol engines but in 1933 a Bristol ‘J’ type chassis was fitted with a Gardner diesel engine and the ‘bus legend’ that was to become Bristol/Gardner was born. Bristol delivered its buses only to nationalised operators, for the “outside” market some of the Bristol buses were built by Dennis.
The majority of the Bristol chassis were bodied by Eastern Coachworks of Lowestoft, though other combinaties of chassis/body were possible. In 1965 the fate of Bristol Commercial Vehicles Ltd was sealed when it became part of the newly-founded British Leyland group. By the end of September 1981 the Brislington works were closed. But many Bristol buses, particularly the Lodekka doubledeckers, are still around, in their second life as party- and sightseeing buses.