The P.R.V. - Design Group

Group Description

A nostalgic website exclusively for ex-Drawing Office employees of Park Royal Vehicles Ltd. (London N.W.10) who were active during the sixties and seventies and includes personal memories, photographs & videos.

If you are an ex-employee of the Drawing Office, please apply to join our group by emailing the webmaster.

There are plenty of photographs and anecdotes on the website for you to reminisce.

Memories of Trams, Buses & Trolleybuses - (Click the video to play; else please click the title link left):

Here I'm pleased to present a wonderful 9mm Cine Film made during the 1960’s by Eric Jones (a member of the PRVdesign Group) capturing nostalgic scenes of trams, buses & trolleybuses; a must for all die-hard bus transport enthusiasts. Ed.

The contents include rare footage of some P.R.V. workshops, bus production, buses being driven around the works & the drawing office (between 1962 & 1968); Eastbourne Trams; Manchester City Transport double-decker at the P.R.V. works (1968); L.T.E. Area S.W. (where green meets red) with scenes of routes 265, 418, 468, 65 & 65A (between 1963 & 1967); Bournemouth trolleybuses - two third size (now in Devon); various routes and bus scenes including: Leatherhead garage & London country days (1970); Family picnic and Crich Tramway Museum (circa 1966); the P.R.V. company outing to Hever Castle (1974); London to Brighton Run for the Historical Commercial Vehicles Society including Reigate Hill, Gatwick (A23), Brighton Marina & plenty of old-timers (May 1964).

Note: With careful scrutiny I believe the following buses definitely appear in the film as 'just built' during September to October 1968: Atlantean WWB192G (Body No. B55744) for Sheffield, Atlantean MTF665G (Body No. B55974) a demonstrator for Leyland and Atlantean TWE104F (Body No. B55837) for Sheffield.  Also there is a glimpse of a bus destined for Stockholm; it may be the Leyland Panther (Body No. B55814) built September 1967, can anyone confirm?  So the question is "what buses can you spot?" Ed.

Park Royal Memories by Steve Churcher - (Click the video to play; else please click the title link left):

Here I'm pleased to present an excellent video of rare stills of bus production from the late-sixties to the mid-seventies at P.R.V. photographed & compiled by Steve Churcher (ex-PRV bus designer); another must for all die-hard bus transport enthusiasts. Ed.

Steve Churcher writes: Over the last few months I've been trawling through my photographs and have compiled a video of stills of my days at P.R.V. that I took over the years from when I first began working there in 1968. 

The black & white pictures are not perfect and some are not properly framed, but I was not that well versed in the art of photography when I was 16 years old!  However, they convey what was happening at the time.  It's not a complete picture of P.R.V. but it's of a time that many of us young bus designers were part of.  I've added captions to some of the pictures which may help, and I hope it stimulates some of the grey memory cells to remind us of the period when British coachbuilding was in its heyday.