Dennis Dart

Dennis Dart with Dartline assembly from Duple

The Dennis Dart is a light midibus with a rear engine from the English manufacturer Dennis Brothers . Over 11,000 buses were built during the 18-year production period. The name Dart was already used by Dennis on a bus series in the 1930s.

background

Planning for the Dart began in 1988 when the Hestair Group, as the owners of Duple Coachbuilders and Dennis , decided to develop a bus in the size class between a minibus and a full- size single deck bus and bring it to the market that same year. Bedford Vehicles produced buses of this size with the Bedford J between 1958 and 1976 and from 1979 to 1981 with the Bedford JJL . Leyland Motors had already brought out a midibus with the Leyland Swift last year.

Dart series SDL

The bus was finally presented in 1989. It had an idiosyncratic Duple- Dartline construction, which was very concise due to the wavy front. The structure was 2.3 m wide and 9 m long, but after a short time Dennis added an 8.5 m and a 9.8 m long variant to the range. The bus from a powered Cummins -Sechszylinder- diesel engine 6BT together with a transmission type AT545 by Allison Transmission . This drive unit was later also used in the MCW Metrorider from Metro Cammell Weymann . The drive of the bus was arranged under the floor, which led to a high floor in the passenger compartment, which required steps in the entrance.

The bus was sold in significant numbers to London Buses and some operators outside London. Shortly after the introduction of the dart, however, the body manufacturer Duple was sold to Plaxton . Plaxton showed no interest in the Dartline assembly, so it was sold to Carlyle Works Limited , who continued to manufacture the assembly. In 1991 the design was sold to Marshall Bus in Cambridge , who made five bodies in 1992. In 1993, Marshall gave the design a facelift and released the C36 version of the body. The later version C37 smoothed out the distinctive shape of the original design completely.

From 1990 Wadham Stringer made structures for the darts. The structure with the name Portsdown sold only hesitantly and was replaced by the UVG Urbanstar in 1995 . In the same year, Wrightbus also presented the mobile phone bus , a structure that was designed to be more functional, but did not represent a design highlight.

Plaxton had already introduced the pointer in 1991 , which was originally called the Reeve Burgess Pointer , as it was manufactured in Reeve Burgess' former production facility . Plaxton had already taken over Reeve Burgess in 1980, but closed the factory in 1991. The pointer structure quickly became the most popular structure for darts.

Also in 1991 the East Lancashire Coachbuilders released the EL2000 . In the same year appeared Dash of Alexander , which sold well. Northern Counties also tried to participate in the success of the darts and developed the Northern Counties Paladin , first with a multi-part windshield, later with a multi-curved, two-part windshield. Plaxton bought the competitor in 1995 and stopped producing the Paladin.

With the trend towards low-floor buses that began in the 1990s, sales of the dart collapsed, so that production of the high-floor dart was discontinued in 1998. The last three buses were delivered to Thames Transit .

Duple dartline
Marshall
Marshall Capital
Wadham Stringer
Wright cell phone bus
Plaxton pointer
East Lancashire Coachbuilders EL2000
Alexander Dash
Northern Counties Paladin

Dart series SLF

In 1995 Dennis brought out a low-floor version with the Dart SLF (Super Low Floor), which later became known as TransBus Dart and Alexander Dennis Dart . With a vehicle width of 2.4 m, lengths of 9.2, 10 and 10.6 m were initially offered. The drive train of the SLD was retained, but air suspension was used instead of the leaf springs of the SLD . Initially, the bus was sold with the low-floor structure of the Pointer , which was replaced in 1997 by the revised Pointer 2 . Other superstructures available were the Spryte of the East Lancashire Coachbuilders , the UVG Urbanstar (later marketed as Caetano Compass and replaced by the Nimbus in 1999 ), the Wright Crusader , the Alexander ALX200 (until 2001), the Marshall Capital developed from the C37 (later at Metro Cammell Weymann built) and its further development MCV Evolution .

Some buses with the ALX200 body were also delivered to North America. On the local market they were sold as Thomas Dennis SLF-series .

In 1997 the dart SPD (Super Pointer Dart) was introduced. At 11.3 m in length, it was just as long as the Leyland National . The bus, designed as a midibus, had reached the length of conventional buses. The engine power has been increased. The B300R from Allison was used as the transmission , with optional transmissions from Voith available. Originally only available with the Pointer-2 superstructure, superstructures from East Lancashire Coachbuilders , Alexander (ALX200) and Marshall were later also offered. In 1998 the series was supplemented by the MPD (Mini Pointer Dart) with a length of 8.8 m, which was still larger than the original dart.

With the introduction of the Euro III emissions standard in October 2001, the new Cummins ISBe was used in darts. The four-cylinder diesel engine with 3.9 l displacement was used in all versions; only the 11.3 m model received the six-cylinder version with 5.9 l displacement. The ISBe Euro IV was offered for the Dart SLF from the end of 2006.

The Dennis Dart SLF was replaced by the Alexander Dennis Enviro200 in 2007 . The last SLF was delivered to Park Island Transport Company Limited in Hong Kong in March 2008.

Another version of the SLF appeared in 2002. On the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, there are special size restrictions for buses due to the topographical conditions. A narrow version of the Dart SLF was developed to replace the outdated buses on the islands . The buses received adapted bodies from East Lancashire Coachbuilders and Caetano . Such buses have also been bought by other operators in the UK. The narrow version of the Dart SLF is also in use in Gibraltar . The last narrow dart was delivered in summer 2007. Alexander Dennis does not have a direct successor for this version yet.