Coastal Tours Duo - Latest Britbus Commission Revealed!
The worst kept secret is finally confirmed! Our next commission of the Britbus Dublin Bus Olympian range of models is a pair of RV class buses in the very classy and attractive original Coastal Tours livery.
Dublin Bus expanded into new markets and begun serving the tourist industry in the 1990s, with services such as open top tours throughout the city of Dublin, and later with iconic services such as the Ghost Bus tour.
Another service which was introduced was the Coastal Tours service, which departed O'Connell street daily and brought tourists on tours of both the north and south coasts of Dublin, with the northside tour running to Malahide and the southside tour to Bray, Co. Wicklow.
For this service, a tours livery inspired by the open top fleet was applied to a small number of new Dublin Bus RV Volvo Olympian double deck buses, beginning with RV330 in 1997.
Of course, whist these buses were dedicated to Coastal Tours duties, they also operated on normal routes too from their base of Donnybrook garage. RV330 was no stranger to the route 14A to Ballinteer, which it operated regularly in the mornings before taking up its coastal tour duties for the day.
RV496 arrived in 1999 to further bolster the growing popularity of the tour as the tourism part of the Dublin Bus services began to flourish, featuring a similar livery, albeit with subtle tweaks to logo positioning and losing of the lower bodyside pin stripes and black bumpers which was a feature of RV330.
Being lovers of detail variety, we approached our latest commission keen to cover both styles of livery and research appropriate services for both RV330 and RV496. RV330 will be available dressed for the 14A to Balinteer, whilst RV496 will be available in full Coastal Tours scrolls.
These pre-production samples were received late last year. Since then improvements and tweaks have been made to the finish on both buses, but offer a glimpse on what many enthusiasts and collectors see as 'the missing link' for the Britbus Alexanader Olympian tooling, with this very attractive livery rumoured a number of years ago but never materialised.
Both buses are limited to 300 pieces each with certificate and bespoke packaging, and are due in stock in mid-March, currently in a container on the high seas. Prices are €59.99 each and are now available to pre-order on our website. Early pre-ordering is advised due to the demand for this livery and limited numbers available.
We would once again like to thank Derek Farrelly, Adrian Richards, Darren Hall, Fred Dean Jr. and Jonathan McDonnell for their valuable assistance in this project.
Order yours (and our other exclusive Irish bus commissions!) by clicking here.