Leyland Titan (B15)

Dating from 1973 the B15, hailed as 'London's Bus of Tomorrow', was the prototype name of the Leyland Titan that eventually entered production at Park Royal in 1977.  Designed and built at PRV, the name Titan was resurrected by Leyland from previous chassis designs that bore the name; something that Leyland was wont to do, that makes categorising Leyland chassis sometimes confusing.

The B15 was the beginning of the end for PRV.  Leyland demanded that the B15 was designed to considerably greater detail than was required by the skilled workforce at PRV.  Every component had to be drawn separately using thick, blunt lead pencils on plastic film and then microfilmed (this was hated by those more used to drawing with a fine pencil point).  Later it was to become evident that this extraordinary detailed design effort as to enable a less skilled workforce to manufacture the bus and after much industrial relations problems at PRV this is precisely what occurred.  Leyland needed no more reasons (or excuses) and late in 1979 the closure of PRV was announced and by May/June 1980 production of the B15 ceased at Park Royal transferring to Leyland's Workington facility in early 1981.  The last Titan built by PRV was T250 (EYE 250V) in May/June 1980.  It would seem therefore that the potential closure of PRV was considered by Leyland management several years before its announcement. 

Here a group of Titans pictured by Tony Scott at PRV works during October/November 1979.

This Leyland Titan B15 has suffered a crunch and is back for repair at PRV.