Southdown Motor Services
1929
Leyland Titan TD1
Brush O27/24RO

Seen at the Southgate roundabout on the A23 Crawley By Pass during the 3rd May 1970 HCVC Rally is UF 4813, a 1929 Leyland Titan TD1 with the Brush open top O27/24RO open staircase body that it carried from new – it is not a conversion. It was restored by Southdown who ran it on the Brighton seafront service for some years, and it currently remains with the Stagecoach heritage fleet. The TD1 model, very advanced when it appeared in 1927, had a six cylinder 6.8 litre overhead camshaft petrol engine of up to 98 bhp driving through a four speed sliding mesh gearbox. Most examples were bodied with the Leyland lowbridge body, the firm initially holding the UK royalty rights for the single offside gangway upper deck layout. Until these patent rights expired in the mid ‘thirties, other manufacturers employed the twin gangway form of the upper deck for lowbridge orders. AEC initially used the ‘camel roof’ design on its highbridge Regent buses purely for cosmetic effect to give a low height appearance from street level, but this was soon abandoned as public acceptance grew of the stability of double deck buses. UF 4813 carries the radiator design of 1929 that then became familiar on all subsequent TD1 and the later TD2 machines. Earlier production retained the radiator shape of the Leviathan.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Roger Cox