The new Aston Martin RM...

[Craig]

There have been two joint winners of the Mayor of London's competition to design a 21st Century Routemaster, one of which has been designed in partnership with Aston Martin:

www.psfk.com/2008/12/routemaster-20.html

The other winner is:

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5370981.ece

I can't help feeling that in the flesh, if they ever get to that stage, they might not have quite the same visual whack!

[A1YBG]

Looking at the routemaster the top link. The pole seems to be in the way if a wheel chair is to get on. Thought this was supposed to be low floor easy access bus!

[siy2009]

The second one looks pretty good and if i had to choose between the 2 it would be the second one. I think the second one looks pretty good..

[A1YBG]

There is an article in This months (well January 2009) about the competition as there is a design that wasn't successful which looked very futuristic like something from Space. Mind you these 2 pics seems to modernise the Routemaster!!!!

[swfcforever]

I am waiting to see if Aston Martin get the design choice to see if there is going to be any James Bond extra's!!!!!!!

[Davidc]

Dec 19, 2008 20:23:05 GMT 1 A1YBG said:

Looking at the routemaster the top link. The pole seems to be in the way if a wheel chair is to get on. Thought this was supposed to be low floor easy access bus!

I take you mean the pole on the rear platform. If so then this is the entrance for non wheelchair passengers. Looking at the pictures I think the door for wheelchair passengers is about half way down the side of the bus. You can see the white line along the bottom of the bus in the 3rd of the 4 pictures on that page (one on the black background). I assume this is the second entrance.

But for me I would definitely go for the second design. It looks really good would look the part on the streets of London.

David.c

[jackh]

I like the first design in my opinion by Aston Martin. The front end on the second design I'm not too keen on looks rather ugly!

The second design which has been designed by Capoco, they were the company who designed the original Solo for Optare.

I wonder who would win the contract to build the buses though? If the design backed by Aston Martin is successful, would they build it? I'm sure TfL could sell the fact that you would travel on Aston Martin.

[Craig]

I don't think it's a given that one of these designs will ever actually enter production, there's a lot more hurdles to jump yet not least the justification of the inevitable high costs involved.

[jackh]

I mean, who is going to have to deal with a whole load of surplus artics that will arise when they start getting withdrawn!?

I do have a sneaking suspicion that the operators may not actually own them and infact owned by EvoBus and leased to the operator hence why most of them carry the West Midlands "BX" registration plates.

[Craig]

Dec 22, 2008 12:48:56 GMT 1 @jackh said:

I mean, who is going to have to deal with a whole load of surplus artics that will arise when they start getting withdrawn!?

I do have a sneaking suspicion that the operators may not actually own them and infact owned by EvoBus and leased to the operator hence why most of them carry the West Midlands "BX" registration plates.

In that case, given the disdain poured upon these vehicles by the press and public, I think EvoBus' best option may be to swap the doors to the other side and lease/sell them in Europe somewhere!

[kendall17]

Its not always like that, i mean BJ03 0UF - Godson's Merc was bought from Evobus brand new and retained its West Midlands prefixes

[danielnew]

How about some of the artics coming to Leeds to replace those on the 1! They are newer after all!