The Optare Esteem was a

low-floor Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i. ...

single-decker bus A single-decker bus or single-decker is a bus that has a single deck for passengers. Normally the use of the term ''single-decker'' refers to a standard two- axled rigid bus, in direct contrast to the use of the term double-decker bus, which ...

body manufactured by

East Lancashire Coachbuilders East Lancashire Coachbuilders Limited was a manufacturer of bus bodies and carriages founded in 1934 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. The company went into administration for a short while in August 2007, before being bought by Darwen Group a ...

, Darwen East Lancs and

Optare Switch Mobility (originally called Optare) is an English bus manufacturer based in Sherburn-in-Elmet, North Yorkshire. It is a subsidiary of Indian company Ashok Leyland. The company would be responsible for the EV operations of the group with ...

between 2006 and 2009 on Scania N94UB, Scania N230UB,

Volvo B7RLE The Volvo B7RLE is a low-entry single-deck bus chassis manufactured by Volvo. It was superseded by the Volvo B8RLE in 2013. Specifications The Volvo B7RLE is similar to its predecessor, the B10BLE. In essence the B7RLE is the front section of t ...

MAN A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromo ...

12.240, Alexander Dennis Dart SLF,

Alexander Dennis Enviro200 Dart The Alexander Dennis Enviro200 (previously known as the TransBus Enviro200) is a midibus that was manufactured by TransBus International and later Alexander Dennis between 2003 and 2018. The original TransBus Enviro200 design was innovative but ...

and Alexander Dennis Enviro300 chassis.

History

Longcross East Lancs Esteem Quality Line

The Esteem was launched by

in 2006. The first production examples entered service with Preston Bus in September 2006 on Scania N94UB chassis. After East Lancashire Coachbuilders was placed in administration in August 2007, it was bought by

Darwen Group The Darwen Group was a bus manufacturer located in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. The company originated from the purchase of East Lancashire Coachbuilders who went into administration in August 2007. After a series of developments, in June 20 ...

and the Esteem was rebranded as the Darwen Esteen. In 2008, Darwen Group merged its Darwen East Lancs and

businesses under the latter name, resulting in the Esteem being rebranded again. The first few examples of the Esteem only had new front and rear ends, the sides still being of the older Myllennium design. There were also two double-decker variants of this body - the Olympus that was a closed top double-decker and the

Visionaire The VisionAire VA-10 Vantage is a prototype single-engined light business-jet (or "very light jet") designed and developed by the American company VisionAire Jets Corporation. Originally planned for production in the late 1990s, the original Visio ...

that was an open top double-decker. Production of the Optare Esteem ceased in 2009, with the last being 40 built on

chassis for

Go-Ahead London Go-Ahead London is the trading name used collectively for the London bus operations of the Go-Ahead Group. The name first appeared in August 2008, before which the company had traded under separate names and brands. It is currently (as of 2021 ...

Panaire

It was also planned for an open top version of the Esteem to be launched alongside, named the Panaire. This version of the bus never attracted any orders and was removed from the product list during the reverse takeover.

Customers

Metrobus had the largest number of the original East Lancs Esteems, some of which were on Scania N94UB, Scania N230UB and

12.240 chassis while 21 on Alexander Dennis Dart SLF chassis were purchased for Transport for London contracted routes. The first two Esteems to be built on the Alexander Dennis Enviro300 chassis were delivered to Courtney Coaches in 2006, and were the first Enviro300s with bodywork not built by

Alexander Dennis Alexander Dennis is a British bus manufacturing company based in Larbert, Scotland. The largest bus and coach manufacturer in the United Kingdom with a 50% market share in 2019, it has manufacturing plants and partnerships in Canada, China, E ...

References

External links

Esteem brochure
East Lancashire Coachbuilders

Optare {{Optare timeline, state=collapsed Esteem Esteem Buses of the United Kingdom Low-floor buses Full-size buses Midibuses Vehicles introduced in 2006