The Leyland-MCW Olympian was an integral single-deck bus built by Weymann Coachbuilders of

Addlestone Addlestone ( or ) is a town in Surrey, England. It is located approximately southwest of London. The town is the administrative centre of the Borough of Runnymede, of which it is the largest settlement. History The town is recorded as ''Attels ...

for the

Metro Cammell Weymann Metro Cammell Weymann Ltd. (MCW) was once a major contributor in transportation manufacturing in the UK and Europe. It was established in 1932 by Metro-Cammell's bus bodybuilding division and Weymann Motor Bodies to produce bus bodies. M ...

group using

Leyland Tiger Cub The Leyland Tiger Cub (coded as PSUC1) was a lightweight underfloor-engined chassis manufactured by Leyland between 1952 and 1970. History The Leyland Tiger Cub was launched in 1952. Most were built as 44-45 seat buses, with a smaller number ...

mechanical units.

British Electric Traction British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rent ...

subsidiary Western Welsh Omnibus Co took one in 1954, 40 in 1956 and six in 1958.

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

Bus Service had four in 1956 (the one pictured in the MCW official picture carries a Tiger Cub badge.) and

John Fishwick & Sons John Fishwick & Sons was a bus company based in Leyland, Lancashire. History The company was formed in 1907 when John Fishwick moved from Wales to Leyland looking for business. He started with a steam propelled wagon from the local Leyland Mo ...

took six in 1957. The 1954 show bus and prototype went to Jones, Aberbeeg whilst a single example was exported to Ceylon, the sole left hand drive example was sold to China in 1958, all 60 were single door. The Olympian for China not only differed from the other 59 in being left hand drive, it was fitted with a Pneumocylic semi-automatic gearbox. Initially finished in cream and orange, it made landfall at Hsinkang and was used by the Beijing authority on experimental suburban express routes. No further were purchased and it seems not to have influenced the direction of Chinese bus design. In his Classic Blunderbus column on the type in Classic Bus 63, the current ''

Buses Magazine ''Buses'' is a United Kingdom magazine focusing mainly on the British public bus industry. It was originally published by Ian Allan Publishing; since March 2012 it has been published by Key Publishing. History and profile ''Buses'' was published ...

'' editor Alan Millar explained that it was a lightweight version of the

Leyland-MCW Olympic The Leyland-MCW Olympic was an underfloor-engined single-deck bus manufactured for at least eighteen countries from 1949 to 1971. 3,564 Olympics were built at four factories (three in the UK, one in South Africa) from 1949 to 1971, with 1,299 O ...

, and as that used Leyland Royal Tiger or Royal Tiger Worldmaster components, so this used

units. The name Olympian was he says adopted because Olympic Cub would have sounded "plain daft"; that said Leyland coded the type HRC (or, for the sole left hand drive version, ELC) where HR or EL was a mnemonic for "Olympic" and C meant "Cub". Completed examples were only 3cwt lighter than Tiger Cub chassis with the same maker's body. In appearance there was little to tell them apart save that the Olympian was differently badged and had a water filler cap aperture mounted behind and slightly above the centre line of the nearside front wheel; The Tiger Cub's water filler cap was higher mounted and generally hidden by a sprung flap. With 60 built and six exported this was the least successful postwar Leyland single deck, none were built after the Chinese example even though Leyland Motors were still advertising its availability in a 1964 booklet. But Leyland kept hold of their registration of the name, and it came in handy for the Project B45

Leyland Olympian The Leyland Olympian was a 2-axle and 3-axle double-decker bus chassis manufactured by Leyland between 1980 and 1993. It was the last Leyland bus model in production. Construction The Olympian had the same chassis and running gear as t ...

in 1980. LW was the bodybuilder's identity for the vehicle, it could have stood for Leyland Weymann, or Light Weight, probably the latter. One of the Fishwick buses is preserved.

References

*Booth (ed), Classic Bus 63, Edinburgh, January 2003. {{Leyland buses, state=collapsed Olympian Vehicles introduced in 1954