This page is dedicated to PRV or Roe products initially destined for East Kent Road Car Company; thus it is a compilation of products found elsewhere on this website.
Registrations FFN 362 & 372
are Guy Arab III's for East Kent. The familiar Guy emblem of the a Native American Indian Chief with full feathered
headdress can easily be seen in the supersized middle picture (my father
had one of these treasures but what happened to it I do not know. Ed.).
Registration Number MFN 883, this Guy Arab IV has Park Royal H61RD bodywork
(Body Nos. B39148-72) belonging to the East Kent Road Car Company Ltd. This vehicle was
the first of its batch of 25 similar vehicles delivered in 1957 to East
Kent. Fleet Numbers were not used by East Kent (Information courtesy of
Roger Hardy).
Registrations GFN 912 & 937 are 1953 Guy Arab IV's with the same Park Royal H61RD
bodywork (Body Nos. B35928 & 53).
With a slightly different door handle and rear lights arrangement, these
vehicles,
destined for East Kent, have the Guy Motors emblem missing from the wheel hubs.
Registration Number CFN 61.
In 1946 East Kent ordered 50 Leyland PS1 coaches fitted with C32R bodies. These were delivered between September 1946 and March 1948. The license numbers were CFN60 to CFN109. CFN 61 (Leyland PS1 Chassis Number 461112, Body Number B32504) was delivered in October 1946 and remained in service until 1959. It was sold for further service at Llanwern, in South Wales, and finally scrapped in 1964.
East Kent used Park Royal bodies for most of its Leyland and Dennis coaches and single deckers delivered until the early 50s, and almost all of its double deckers delivered from 1930 to 1970. Park Royal continued to feature in coach deliveries in the 1950s and 1960s alongside Beadle, Duple and Plaxton (information kindly supplied by Mike Harvey).
Chris Ransted kindly sent in this image of a WW2 1000kg bomb clearly protruding
the rear offside wheel arch of an East Kent vehicle (now known to be a Leyland
Tiger - see below), apparently taken by an
unknown (but brave) photographer in Norwich. This is quite possible given that
buses travelled widely during WW2 for a variety of reasons. (Let alone the
photographer, there is also a rather brave fellow standing next to the
device. I admit to retouching the left side of the image that was heavily
crumpled, creased and partly missing. Ed.) [see also the Leyland
Tiger & Wartime
pages]
Can anyone identify the vehicle? Could it be PRC/PRV or some other coachbuilder? The only clue appears to be the ash trays set into the back of the seating that leads me to believe it more likely a coach than a bus!
Here
is the answer kindly sent in by Garth Wyver, Garth writes:
You have probably had someone identify the East Kent vehicle with the bomb protruding by
now (it's June 2017 & no, I haven't Ed.). However here is my view. I
think it was a Leyland TS7 delivered in 1935 (Reg. JG5431) with Park Royal C32R
body. After damage in an air raid it was rebuilt by Park Royal with a full length roof pannier for carrying band instruments. This coach carried the
East Kent dark red livery with a narrow cream band, at the time it was damaged.
I gleaned this information from Dick Gilbert's excellent Classic Buses Classic Buses website
I would like to thank you for your excellent web site.
(Thanks Garth for your kind thoughts about my site and your well found input
- here is the East
Kent page on Dick Gilbert's splendid site - as you say it's all there. Ed.)
Registration Numbers FFN 448 & 9 (Body Nos. B34579-80). Leyland Royal Tiger
(May 1951), the first
two of six
vehicles for East Kent pictured at PRV's works.
Registration PFN843 Built September 1958 (Body Nos. B42279-318) for East Kent.
Registration WFN840 Built
August 1961 (Body Nos. B45722-37) for East Kent.
Registration YJG818 Built May
1962 (Body Nos. B48723-39) for East Kent.
Registration 6791FN Built
April 1963 (Body Nos. B49016-38) for East Kent.
Registration AFN7748 Built
February 1964 (Body Nos. B50032-51) for East Kent.
Registration GJG740D Built January
1966 (Body Nos. B54151-80) for East Kent.
Registration MFN945F Built October
1967 (Body Nos. B55509-23) for East Kent.
Registration TFN405 Built February
1960 (Body Nos. B43856-75) for East Kent.
Registration WFN513 Built in May 1961 (Body No. B45362) for East Kent is
pictured in 2013 outside the old depot in New Romney, alongside another Park Royal product,
a BEA Regent IV coach.
Registration 519FN Built July 1962 (Body Nos.
B48758-77) for East Kent.
Registration 6546FN Built June
1963 (Body Nos. B49006-14) for East Kent.
Registration
519FN Built November 1963 (Body Nos. B49105) for East Kent.
Registration AFN600B Built May 1964 (Body Nos. B50022-31) for East Kent.
Registration DJG609C Built April
1965 (Body Nos. B52367-92) for East Kent.
Registration
GJG632D Built March 1966 (Body Nos. B54181-92) for East Kent.
Registration Number RFN959G Built
May 1969 (Body Nos. B56543-62); for East Kent.
This beautifully crafted prototype (42 inch long) timber model, delicately perched on the roof wall at Park Royal, was the design of the PRV bodywork intended for the Dennis Lancet III chassis and destined for East Kent Road Car Company (circa 1950). In all twenty-five buses were produced.
No doubt this work of art, demonstrating the carpenter's skill and craftsmanship, has long been scrapped. Today it would be a treasured possession!
Update:
Well I thought it would be long lost; but Mike Harvey has kindly advised me that this model prototype survives at the Dover Transport Museum just off the A2 at Whitfield. Apparently the museum also has a photograph of the back of another East Kent bus carrying one of only two LOWbridge Utility bodies produced by Park Royal, and fitted to two old East Kent Leyland TS2 chassis, FN 9094 (from 1928) and JG 652 (from 1930). These were unusual in having a long wheelbase (17ft 6 in), and may have been unique for Park Royal double deck Utility buses.
