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“O brave new world that hath such people in it” – the brave new world of the 1960s led to many experiments and these two are good examples. ‘Mancunian’ bus 1001 was a real trendsetter and it was a revolution in bus design – some of its ideas influenced buses for decades. Bus 74 on the right comes into the ‘nearly, but not quite’ bracket – Manchester wanted a rear underfloor engined bus that was 11 metres long, but the components available at the time meant that manufacturer Leyland made design compromises that made the resulting ‘Panther Cub’ model unreliable. Fewer than a hundred were built. PAUL WILLIAMS