Duple MetSec Query

[Lothianbus703]

Was Duple Metsec able to produce batches of buses for the UK from their West Midlands factory, or only produce knock down kits to be built in workshops abroad?

 

[busesrusuk]

I'm not sure of they were able or not to build buses for the home market but I cant think of any Metsec bodied buses bought new by UK operators - at least not deckers.

They did do good business in Hong Kong for many years and the later bodied vehicles were quite nice in my opinion, particularly the Metsec bodied Tridents used on city flyer services by Citybus.

I'm pretty sure that some Citybus vehicles were put together by Caetano rather than being built up in the UK or Hong Kong.

Here is one of the Cityflyer buses which IMO were some of the nicest buses in Hong Kong at the time. A number were bought by both KMB and NWFB too:

Citybus 2160 HK10

Hong Kong International Airport, HK 2010

www.flickr.com

 

[Lothianbus703]

I'm not sure of they were able or not to build buses for the home market but I cant think of any Metsec bodied buses bought new by UK operators - at least not deckers.

They did do good business in Hing Kong for many years and the later bodied vehicles were quite nice in my opinion.. particularly the Metsec bodied tridents used on city flyer services by Citybus.

I'm pretty sure that some Citybus vehicles were put together by Caetano rather than being built up in the UK or Hong Kong.

Here is one of the Cityflyer buses which IMO were some of the nicest buses in Hong Kong at the time. A number were bought by both KMB and NWFB to:

Citybus 2160 HK10

Hong Kong International Airport, HK 2010

www.flickr.com

The Duple Metsec 5000/3500 bodies were good and its a shame none were built for the UK.

I think they did have a small workshop to build small amounts of buses, although i saw somewhere that some NWFB 5000s were UK built.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 May 2023 ==

Would a company that does all its maintainence in house along with major overhauls be able to build kit buses in their own workshop?

 

[Roilshead]

A batch of Potter-bodied Daimler Fleetlines constructed for Belfast Corporation Transport in 1967 were constructed using Metal Sections framing, and Longwell Green certainly used Metal Sections framing in some of their bodies.

 

[Lothianbus703]

Would a DM3500 or DM5000 of been built for the UK if an operator requested?
(built by DM themselves or contracted)