Back to the future with the Duple 425

In 2019 there are only a very small number of iconic Duple 425 coaches left in use. Richard Sharman found one, however, and had the opportunity to test drive it to see how it compares with modern-day coaches

When you look back at some of the coaches that changed coach travel and took it to another level over the last 30+ years, the Blackpool-built Duple 425 would certainly be one of them.

The 1980s was a time when British coaching was dominated by the country’s two largest coachbuilders, Plaxton and Duple. Respectively they had been building the Supreme and Dominant, but Scarborough-based Plaxton moved on with the Paramount, which then reigned supreme. However, Duple was also to bring out a number of models to try and dethrone Plaxton.
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Customers that were loyal to Duple during the Dominant days had continued to buy the Laser and the high-floor Caribbean from its introduction in 1983, the original models only lasting two years before facelifted versions came along at the end of 1984. The changes made introduced a fresher face to the Duple product. The twin headlights were changed to more modern single units, a curved area below the windscreen added and the chrome work replaced with rubber trim. The Duple Laser 2 Express attracted many orders, with this option adding express doors, a cab door, and destination equipment.

The Hestair Group, which also owned Dennis, took over Duple in 1983. From this point on, the product offerings to the coach operator were greatly developed. Hestair saw the acquisition as a way to get more Javelin chassis into the market quickly. To that end, the Duple 320 and the hi-line 340 were introduced during 1985. Both of these models were a major improvement on previous generations and brought the Duple offering up -to-date. Multiple chassis options were offered over the four-year build period, including the Bedford YNT/YNV, DAF MB230/SB230, Leyland Tiger, Scania K92, Volvo B10M and the Javelin.

The origins of the 425

Whilst the Duple 320 and 340 sold in reasonable numbers, sales at Duple were declining compared to previous years. The coach that Hestair and Duple thought could halt the decline was the 425. Built with Cromweld corrosion-resistant steel and designed to a shape that had not been seen in the UK before, the 425 was the showstopper that Duple needed.

The first prototype 425 was revealed to the industry’s NEC show in 1984. Occasionally, a vehicle comes along that is completely different from anything that has come before. In 1984 there were several contenders including the Setra S215, MCW Metroliner coach and Volvo C10M, but none could claim the fuel-saving drag coefficient of 0.425 that the Duple had. Hence the name given to Duple’s new offering.

Whittles of Kidderminster and Hutchinson of Overtown were two of the first operators of the 425 on C-prefix number plates. In total, it is thought that 132 examples of the Duple 425 were made. Amongst the standard examples was one frame not completed, at least one built in left-hand-drive and one built as a hospitality unit for the McLaren F1 team. This still exists today but with a different owner.

A number of coach operators took pairs, but by far the biggest operators were bus companies using them on express services. Berks Bucks Bus Company took the largest number at six, followed by five for Alder Valley South, then South Wales Transport with four. Others that operated three included Crosville Wales, Western National, Skills of Nottingham and Swanbrook, Cheltenham.

Despite the initial success of the 425, the mid to late 1980s was a turbulent time for Duple. Bova, Jonckheere and Van Hool were all becoming popular with coach operators that wanted something different with a better price tag. Production of vehicles at the Blackpool factory had slowed and by 1988 it had only produced 250 vehicles.

The Hestair Group decided to dispose of Duple to a management buyout team, Trinity Holdings, in the winter of 1988. By summer 1989 Trinity Holdings had decided to close Duple down and sell the vehicle designs to Plaxton and Carlyle. It might have been the end of Duple production, but not the 425.

The French 425 twelve
As Plaxton now had the rights to Duple’s designs the 425 jigs were dispatched to Carrosserie Lorraine, a subsidiary of Iveco that Plaxton had a three-year contract with to expand the business and bring Iveco coaches to the UK.

A total of 12 Plaxton 425s were produced. Plaxton had made upgrades to the vehicle insulation, changed the manual gearbox from cable to rods, and upgraded the braking system. The interior had many similarities to the recently-introduced Premiere and Excalibur. Unfortunately, this removed soft trim and much of the interior featured cream-coloured plastics. Whilst there was little in the way of exterior changes, a Plaxton 425 can be recognised by its two-piece window on the entry door, two air vents about the side windows and top front and rear continental marker lights.
Production ceased after the 12 were produced between 1991 and 1992 due to the three-year contract with Iveco ending.

Updating the 425

Many operators wanted to keep their 425s in service long after production had ceased because the Cromweld steel construction meant they were still in good condition. John Worker Styling Ltd (JWS) decided to introduce a number of upgrades that would help bring those vehicles up-to-date.

The work, fittingly carried out by Blackpool Coach Services, comprised a number of options. For a complete JWS ‘Re-Created’ Duple 425 Starcruiser the price was £25k, which included a full interior retrim and updated front and rear styling panels and lights. An exterior pack only came in at £14,950. The operator provided a donor 425, but JWS was also able to help source a vehicle if required.

JWS’ main sales proposition was that it was: “The cheapest route to a stunning front-line coach.” To be fair, it did a great job of disguising the 425’s true age. As the rake of the top windscreen has never really been replicated since the 425, it is a design that has stood the test of time, and updating the front and rear panels continued to make it look like a modern coach.

Mounts Bay Coaches of Penzance kindly made a 425 available to me to test drive that had been through the exterior re-styling pack process. The work undertaken, additional to that noted above, was a new rear screen plus air dome, new side panels in galvanised steel and a complete re-paint.
Mounts Bay Coaches’ 425

Brand new in July 1987, Mounts Bay Coaches’ Duple 425 was originally registered D901HBX with Silcox Coaches, Pembroke Dock and carried fleet number 171. It was powered by a Cummins L10 rather than the DAF option, which very few had.

For many years this 425 has been the first coach visitors to Penzance have seen, because it is almost always parked in a prominent position outside the depot or in a nearby lay-by – a good advert for the company and a welcoming sight for those that know how rare it is to see a 425.

Now registered OXI725 and named Dolly Pentreath, it came to Mounts Bay Coaches as a 53-seater with a centre demountable toilet in 1995. It was registered A3WLS and then carried D45KDE prior to its current plate. The toilet was removed and the vehicle up-seated in later life to 59-seats for school contract use.

The vehicle has been in the care of Workshop Manager Val Kaute since 1997. Talking about keeping it on the road, Val said: “Parts are still fairly easy to come by, as the engine is Cummins. The most expensive items to replace now are the side windows. They can be around £500.

“We keep the 425 on as the 59-seat capacity is ideal for our school runs. It is reliable. The engine was rebuilt by Cummins at Bristol some 20 years ago, but it is still good.”

First impressions
For a coach that is 32 years old, this 425 looks half its age; I have seen worse presented 10-year-old vehicles out on tour. The JWS Starcruiser conversion has undoubtedly helped to disguise its age, but even then, it is the aerodynamic profile of the 425 that allows it to retain its youthful looks.
Even though the 425 claimed 11-16mpg, the rake of the windscreen has not been replicated, although the Plaxton Elite does bare a modernised resemblance to the 425’s top windscreen.

The presentation of OXI725 really is a credit to Val, who has kept it looking its best. The wheels are nicely silvered. You could have the most polished coach in the coach park, but if the wheels are dirty or rusty then it totally detracts from the overall impression. All bodywork is straight and damage free. The fleet name is prominently displayed and the livery suits the shape of the vehicle.

Underfloor luggage capacity is very good and is only interrupted by the lower half of the demountable toilet, which remains in situ. Of note are the cantilever luggage locker doors, a very modern feature for a coach designed in the early 1980s. The engine bay boot lid is also of the cantilever style, allowing maximum access.

Welcoming interior

Entering the vehicle through the wide plug passenger door reveals an uncluttered entry area. A courier seat is fitted, but set well back. The first thing I immediately noticed is how light and airy the interior is, even on what was a dull day.

The seating fabric retains the Graffiti style moquette that was popular during the 1990s, but it is clean and serviceable. The red floor lino is typical of coaches of this age, but is clean and undamaged. Even the passenger service units in the overhead racks are of good quality and design, Duple favouring the square air vents rather than the old fashioned round ones.

The overhead luggage racks are very familiar as they are similar to the style used in the Duple 320 and 340, having a curved edge with interior lighting designed into that. Amazingly the coach has retained the three interior video monitors it had fitted from new, one just behind the cab and two at different angles further towards the rear of the coach. Val assures me that if you put a videotape into the recorder, they all still work.

The orange curtains are original and very reminiscent of my experience of travelling on Duple Lasers and 320s in my youth!

Around Mounts Bay
It was time to take OXI725 out on the roads around Penzance. It was blowing a gale outside at the time, so Val and I were glad to get inside the vehicle.

Making myself comfortable in the cab of the 425, I felt happy that I was having the experience to drive one of these iconic coaches. I guess the main difference between driving it and a 2019 coach is the feeling that everything is truly mechanical. No laptops are required and almost everything can be adjusted or fixed with a spanner or screwdriver. It is literally man and machine.

Starting up the Cummins L10 engine, which when new boasted 290hp and 1,288Nm of torque, was a matter of turning a key on top of the dash. Doing that, the L10 sprung into life and it was great to hear that familiar hum again after so many years. The sound reminded me of the MCW Metroliners of the same era that I used to travel on to London with Oxford CityLink.

The layout of the dash is functional and impressively, all the gauges were working including the rev-counter – one of the first things that normally fails on coaches of this era. The handbrake is mounted on the dash rather than under the cab window, but all other controls were easy to hand. Vision was excellent as the front of the coach from the dash upwards is mainly all glass. Despite it being a dull day, sunglasses were required due to the large amount of light that is let in from the top piece of aerodynamic glass.

During the production period of the Duple and Plaxton 425, it went through a number of gearbox option changes. The early models featured a six-speed ZF gearbox, which was quickly changed to a seven-speed, both using cables to change gears. An automatic option was also available. The 12 Plaxton 425s used rods to change gears rather than cable. OXI725 has the seven-speed cable change.

Val explained that it goes very well, but there is a knack to finding the gears. Having driven possibly the worst gearbox ever around 10 years ago, a four over four in a 1990 DAF-engined Caetano Algarve, with the world’s heaviest clutch, I thought that this would be no problem!

Departing Mounts Bay Coaches’ depot was perhaps the first difficult task. The depot is situated on the main dual carriageway into Penzance, and it was a busy Monday morning so no gap was apparent in the speeding traffic. Val said: “Hang on. I will sort this out.” I opened the door and off he went. There is a pedestrian crossing right next to the depot, so he went and pressed the button. The traffic came to a halt and we were able to pull out.

Now, this gearbox does, as Val said, take some getting used to. Despite this being a seven-speed gearbox, first gear had an extremely short ratio and is only really designed for crawling. With it also being a cable change, it wasn’t the most accurate or predictable.

The first task was to spin the 425 round at a nearby roundabout and head towards Marazion. As we got going, and after a few missed gear changes, I was starting to become comfortable with driving the coach. Those 290 horses had not bolted the stable in the last 20 years since the engine was overhauled. Once into the higher gears, the 425 flew as we joined the A30 dual carriageway. We were quickly up to the limiter, out-accelerating a National Express Caetano Levante that was only a few years old. At this speed, there was no wind noise from the plug door or cab window, despite the high winds outside.

The steering was superb – well-weighted and accurate. There was also no body roll, the 425 remained planted to the road regardless of the quality of the surface.

The reason for heading to Marazion was to get some images of the 425 next to the sea, which we succeeded in doing. On leaving the car park Val warned me that from here on the roads became extremely narrow. He wasn’t wrong! As we made our way down through the village it narrowed to a point where two cars would struggle to pass, but with the excellent all-around vision, I felt confident driving the 425.

Back into Penzance

Once the Marazion section was completed we headed back into Penzance for a run alongside the coastline. By this point the rain had arrived and was heavy. The 425 had two floor-mounted heater boxes and a powerful demister unit. I switched them all on to see how effective they were as the cold was being felt and the windscreen starting to mist up. As we drove around the bay the waves were crashing over the breaker and onto the side of the coach.

Moving away from the coastline, Val showed me the old travel shop the company used to own and sell excursions from. Mounts Bay Coaches is a firm that is ingrained in the history of Penzance and will be covered in a CBW Operator Profile in the coming months.

The outskirts of Penzance are quite hilly, but the Cummins L10 had plenty of power and maintained a good pace without me having to drop down too many gears. A few more stops were made for photographs, and on one of those I walked to the back of the interior of the coach to see how effective two heater units would be. Both were belting out hot air which had effectively heated the whole of the saloon.

Returning to the depot was just as interesting as departing. There’s a turning area just outside the depot so that vehicles can reverse in. This was a good chance for me to test reverse gear and more importantly the steering lock. Waiting for a space to clear, the 425 easily went round, the steering lock being more than ample.

Having spent a good hour and a half out in the 425, I left Mounts Bay Coaches feeling privileged that I had been allowed to drive it. Half an hour later, I was sitting in the Sainsbury’s Café opposite the depot watching the rain lash down, thinking to myself it really was the Marty McFly of coaches. It is almost like it had gone ‘Back to the Future.’ It was a coach design that was well ahead of anything else on the market at the time and perhaps operators were not ready for such a radical change in design. It is just a shame that its true potential was never really fully appreciated or developed with just 144 units built. I think it could have done so much more had Duple not had issues or the French Plaxton factory closed just as the 425 was being re-launched.

Luckily many people in the industry, and enthusiasts, feel the same and there are a number of these coaches safely in preservation.

Gallery

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