Born on 23 November 1933, former Guy Motors employee and authority on the company Robin Hannay passed away on 4 December.
Robin was born in Derby and spent his childhood in the city. From an early age he was a bus enthusiast, standing on the gates of his parent’s house to watch buses travel down the A38 to Burton upon Trent. In his formative years at Bemrose Grammar School Robin developed a strategic ability to avoid all forms of physical exercise, instead sitting in the school library observing the comings and goings of the Derby Corporation bus fleet and importantly the delivery of new vehicles from Guy Motors to coach builders in Loughborough and Leeds. On Saturday mornings he would cycle the four miles from his parents’ home to local operator Blue Bus Services in Willington to clean its fleet of buses.
Supported by his father, Robin joined Guy Motors on the Student Engineering Apprenticeship scheme in September 1950, and in later years would produce numerous articles and books documenting the history of the firm. His apprenticeship served him well gaining experience in all departments and enabling him to attend the Commercial Motor Show, an annual event for Robin until his retirement.
In 1959 he joined Dennis Brothers as the Loline sales manager and quickly got involved in the re-design of the Loline to create the Mk3, which was launched at the 1960 Commercial Motor Show. Dennis decided not to increase production of the Mk3, which led to a parting of the ways and Robin joining AEC in the summer of 1962. AEC merged with British Leyland to form the British Leyland Motor Corporation and Robin remained with that concern until 1975 when he joined Leyland dealer, before moving onto Chatfields of Manchester where he remained until his retirement in 1998.
Robin was a lorry and bus enthusiast for over 80 years, joining the Omnibus Society in 1950, the PSV Circle in 1953, the Historic Commercial Vehicle Society in the 1960s, and was a stalwart of the Model Bus Federation since its inception.
