Vehicle History - The Dennis Dominator

[Strathclyder]

Another thread that's been in the 'been meaning to put this up for ages' pile for too long...

The Dennis Dominator story, while not quite as well-documented as it's contemporaries at the time of it's conception in the mid/late 70s (Ailsa, Metrobus etc), is still a fascinating one. Thusly, and in line with the other such threads, this thread concerns itself with the type's conception/development, service history (incl. examples built for overseas markets) and survivors in preservation. Being intrinsically tied to the Dominator, discussion of the models that were developed off the back of it with the export market in mind - the Dragon/Condor - is allowed.

Over to the rest of you; am trying not to over-saturate the opening post like I usually do with these threads lol

EDIT: Two videos I forgot to add eariler to round this OP out (both from the FF 3170 YT channel):

 

[busesrusuk]

I think the story of the Dominator is one of "from little acorns". Dennis came to the market with an alternative to the Leyland offerings and found a ready market as it effectively became a natural replacement for the Fleetline as it was offered with the all important Gardner engine.

Dennis seemed to go to great lengths to accommodate specific operator requests which resulted in big orders - one that springs to mind being the Sth Yorkshire PTE with its Rolls Royce engined fleet. Large numbers went to Hong Kong both as a two axle bus but also as a tri-axle in the form of the Dennis Condor/Dragon. The only difference being the name to appease the operators in Hong Kong - the Condor named such for the benefit of China Motor Bus.

It also reinvigorated and established Dennis as a serious player, leading onto the development of the Trident and E400. A number of images of Dominators on my flickr site. Here are a few:

Big Bus G34 FWC Apr 14 | ex China Motor Bus Dennis Condor. C… | Flickr

NWFB DA80 HK12 | Canal Road flyover, Nov 2012 | Keith Wood | Flickr

Preserved Leicester 50 Sep 14 | Leicester running day, Sept … | Flickr

LT H1 | Aldgate Bus Station. I think this must be another sh… | Flickr

China Motor Bus DL16 | Kings Road, Fortress Hill. HK 1994 | Keith Wood | Flickr

Preserved Mainline 2260 Aug21 | Olive Grove open day, Aug 20… | Flickr

 

[Strathclyder]

I think the story of the Dominator is one of "from little acorns". Dennis came to the market with an alternative to the Leyland offerings and found a ready market as it effectively became a natural replacement for the Fleetline as it was offered with the all important Gardner engine.

Dennis seemed to go to great lengths to accommodate specific operator requests which resulted in big orders - one that springs to mind being the Sth Yorkshire PTE with its Rolls Royce engined fleet. Large numbers went to Hong Kong both as a two axle bus but also as a tri-axle in the form of the Dennis Condor/Dragon. The only difference being the name to appease the operators in Hong Kong - the Condor named such for the benefit of China Motor Bus.

It also reinvigorated and established Dennis as a serious player, leading onto the development of the Trident and E400.

That is a fair assessment of the Dominator story; that it helped bring Dennis back into the mainstream through being the Fleetline's natural replacement & being flexible with operator requests (the Dart merely catapulted them to very near the top) and led to the runaway success story that was the Trident (the short-lived Arrow acted as something of a bridge between the two), which of course led directly to the E400 in all the forms it has taken ever since Spirit of London first appeared.

One in thing to note here is that all the Dragons/Condors that entered service in Hong Kong after 28th May 1997 (this was the date KMB's ATR1, the very first Trident, first arrived in HK) were younger than the earliest low-floor deckers; the last Dragons (the last of the 9.9m ADS-class aka 'Baby Dragons') to enter service did so with KMB in July 1999.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The Dominator was, of course, offered as a single deck chassis and was taken by a few firms, notably Darlington, Thamesdown, Merthyr, Barrow and Hartlepool but it wasn't a great success. A heavy chassis, and poor reliability from a compromised extended chassis, and poor fuel consumption saw Darlington and Merthyr begin offloading theirs in less than 10 years (though Darlington's second batch lasted until they went pop).

The East Lancs body was hideous, as Claire Pendrous's photo testifies. I don't think the Hartlepool ones lasted past 12 years either.

What do you mean, you forgot to include the engine compartment into the design?

'She looks like the backend of a bus' is a term often used by men to describe women they don't find particularly attractive. However, if a man said that a woman looked like the backend a Hartlepool Dennis Dominator, then they’d have to be saying that she’s worse than ugly. ...As the backend of...

www.flickr.com

 

[hst43102]

This reminds me of an old acquaintance of mine - ex-Hong Kong Dennis Condor G324FWC (pictured below), registered with Country Lion of Northampton as NIL7250.
It entered service in 2005/2006 and was withdrawn earlier this year. I believe it has since passed into the preservation world!

 

[A0]

This reminds me of an old acquaintance of mine - ex-Hong Kong Dennis Condor G324FWC, registered with Country Lion of Northampton as NIL7250.
It entered service in 2005/2006 and was withdrawn earlier this year. I believe it has since passed into the preservation world!

That wasn't the only Condor doing time on Northants schools services - Souls of Olney picked up a couple which had previously been with Weaverway in Newbury, so entered service wearing that operator's idiosyncratic 'Noah Vale' fleet names...

The Dominator's success was limited - but that has to be set against the background of the time. When introduced in 1977 NBC companies would have been steered towards Bristol VRs, Atllanteans and in due course Olympians. Getting non-standard vehicles did happen on some fleets but the NBC wasn't keen. That said the Dominator provided municipals who liked the Fleetline but didn't want Atlanteans or VRs somewhere to go. The other option was, of course, the more successful in numbers at least, Metrobus, which London and West Mids went for, the latter through local loyalty.

What it probably did do was keep Dennis's foot in the door on double-deck chassis production, so as others fell by the wayside e.g. MCW they were able to pick up market share, notably with the Trident.

 

[ZJ517]

I think the story of the Dominator is one of "from little acorns". Dennis came to the market with an alternative to the Leyland offerings and found a ready market as it effectively became a natural replacement for the Fleetline as it was offered with the all important Gardner engine.

Dennis seemed to go to great lengths to accommodate specific operator requests which resulted in big orders - one that springs to mind being the Sth Yorkshire PTE with its Rolls Royce engined fleet. Large numbers went to Hong Kong both as a two axle bus but also as a tri-axle in the form of the Dennis Condor/Dragon. The only difference being the name to appease the operators in Hong Kong - the Condor named such for the benefit of China Motor Bus.

It also reinvigorated and established Dennis as a serious player, leading onto the development of the Trident and E400.

IMO the Dart has done much more to establish Dennis as a key player in UK bus manufacturing. Whilst the Dominator did ok for Dennis through its production lifespan, by deregulation it was comprehensively outsold by pretty much all of its competitors in the UK market, except only the Leyland Lion. But for the repeated orders from Hong Kong, or specifically, Kowloon Motor Bus, I doubt the Dominator would have remained in production for as long as it did. Put it that way, KMB alone bought nearly half more Dominators and Dragons (the 3-axle version) over the years than Dennis's full production run of Dominators (excluding the 3-axle Dragon/Condor).

What the Dominator (and Dragon/Condor) did was putting Dennis back into the game and kept the lines clicking. It was the monumentally successful Darts that really put the business onto a path of success and domination that it eventually established over the millennium.

 

[Strathclyder]

IMO the Dart has done much more to establish Dennis as a key player in UK bus manufacturing. Whilst the Dominator did ok for Dennis through its production lifespan, by deregulation it was comprehensively outsold by pretty much all of its competitors in the UK market, except only the Leyland Lion. But for the repeated orders from Hong Kong, or specifically, Kowloon Motor Bus, I doubt the Dominator would have remained in production for as long as it did. Put it that way, KMB alone bought nearly half more Dominators and Dragons (the 3-axle version) over the years than Dennis's full production run of Dominators (excluding the 3-axle Dragon/Condor).

What the Dominator (and Dragon/Condor) did was putting Dennis back into the game and kept the lines clicking. It was the monumentally successful Darts that really put the business onto a path of success and domination that it eventually established over the millennium.

Further to this, there was a 3 year gap between the penultumate and last batches of Dominators built for the home market: 3 originally ordered by Strathclyde's Buses in the wake of the Larkfield fire with Alexander bodies, but ultimately taken on by Mayne's of Clayton & finished with East Lancs bodies after the former cancelled the order at a early stage (entering service there in March 1993 & ultimately registered K36-37 XNE & K38 YVM; I beileve they had Strathclyde reg plates alloted to them early on however; confirmation on whether any of this is true would be greatly appreicated) & 4 East Lancs-bodied examples for Guilford & West Surrey in April 1996 (registered N713-716 TPK), afterwhich the Arrow took over for what turned out to be the brief 3-year interim between the Dominator & the Trident.

This reminds me of an old acquaintance of mine - ex-Hong Kong Dennis Condor G324FWC (pictured below), registered with Country Lion of Northampton as NIL7250.
It entered service in 2005/2006 and was withdrawn earlier this year. I believe it has since passed into the preservation world!
View attachment 103013

324 in the latter stage of it's H.K. career as New World First Bus' DA3 in June 2001 (image sourced from this link):



Now that's it's entered retirement by way of entering preservation, I assume a return to one of it's HK guises (CMB or NWFB) will follow in due course. Glad to see another Dragon/Condor saved at any rate.

 

[David Verity]

Another thread that's been in the 'been meaning to put this up for ages' pile for too long...

The Dennis Dominator story, while not quite as well-documented as it's contemporaries at the time of it's conception in the mid/late 70s (Ailsa, Metrobus etc), is still a fascinating one. Thusly, and in line with the other such threads, this thread concerns itself with the type's conception/development, service history (incl. examples built for overseas markets) and survivors in preservation. Being intrinsically tied to the Dominator, discussion of the models that were developed off the back of it with the export market in mind - the Dragon/Condor - is allowed.

Over to the rest of you; am trying not to over-saturate the opening post like I usually do with these threads lol

EDIT: Two videos I forgot to add eariler to round this OP out (both from the FF 3170 YT channel):

As has often been reported, the Dominator was a product of Geoffrey Hilditch's dissatisfaction with Leyland's refusal to offer Gardner engines in the Atlantean. He was at the time Engineering Director at West Yorks PTE and much of the development work which led to the Dominator took place in the Technical Office at HQ in Wakefield, using an ex Leeds Daimler CVG6 as a testbed for the engine/transmission package. When he left to go to Leicester as GM all work promptly ceased but by that time he had his rolling experimental vehicle, painted bright orange, which became a regular sight on the streets of Leicester,

 

[Tom Gallacher]

The Dominator shared a lot of common parts with the Metrobus (axle and drivetrain). In some sense it was a similar link up to the Bristol Lodekka/Dennis Loline collaboration, albeit not a way to get around sanctions.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

4 East Lancs-bodied examples for Guilford & West Surrey in April 1996 (registered N713-716 TPK), afterwhich the Arrow took over for what turned out to be the brief 3-year interim between the Dominator & the Trident.

Appropriate that these four, rather surprising late vehicles, spent the majority of their lives around Guildford before heading to Maidstone (except one which went earlier to Southend). Judging by Flickr, one does survive. They were also in the era when London and Country had chocolate brown and emerald moquette

 

[Strathclyder]

Appropriate that these four, rather surprising late vehicles, spent the majority of their lives around Guildford before heading to Maidstone (except one which went earlier to Southend). Judging by Flickr, one does survive. They were also in the era when London and Country had chocolate brown and emerald moquette

That would be N715 TPK, which I beileve is in preservation; one of the embedded vids in the thread's OP is of that vehicle. Appears to be a pretty lively ol' beast (roughly the same age as me in fact lol) when driven hard enough.

 

[Swanny200]

Appropriate that these four, rather surprising late vehicles, spent the majority of their lives around Guildford before heading to Maidstone (except one which went earlier to Southend). Judging by Flickr, one does survive. They were also in the era when London and Country had chocolate brown and emerald moquette

Yes, Arriva shipped them to Maidstone and Medway Towns. Arriva's predecessors Maidstone and District had a couple of batches of Dominators including some Willowbrook versions (FKM---V batch) and an oddity in XBF700S, a very strange one off Dominator with lowheight Alexander bodywork that had originated with PMT.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Yes, Arriva shipped them to Maidstone and Medway Towns. Arriva's predecessors Maidstone and District had a couple of batches of Dominators including some Willowbrook versions (FKM---V batch) and an oddity in XBF700S, a very strange one off Dominator with lowheight Alexander bodywork that had originated with PMT.

The PMT one was for operational testing by the National Bus Company for comparison with a Bristol VR and their Foden-NC. With that operating territory and a range of low bridges, it had to be low height though it looked a bit sad.

M&D did take it but also a few other secondhand examples, including other Willowbrook ones new to Murkeyside. They also took some ex East Staffs ones that initially passed to Stevensons. Not certain of the reason why (reliability, fuel, book value?) but they saw Stevensons dispose of them without being used to M&D and to Thamesdown, preferring the simpler ex London DMS!

 

[carlberry]

IMO the Dart has done much more to establish Dennis as a key player in UK bus manufacturing. Whilst the Dominator did ok for Dennis through its production lifespan, by deregulation it was comprehensively outsold by pretty much all of its competitors in the UK market, except only the Leyland Lion. But for the repeated orders from Hong Kong, or specifically, Kowloon Motor Bus, I doubt the Dominator would have remained in production for as long as it did. Put it that way, KMB alone bought nearly half more Dominators and Dragons (the 3-axle version) over the years than Dennis's full production run of Dominators (excluding the 3-axle Dragon/Condor).

What the Dominator (and Dragon/Condor) did was putting Dennis back into the game and kept the lines clicking. It was the monumentally successful Darts that really put the business onto a path of success and domination that it eventually established over the millennium.

Dennis managed to produce the Dart at just the right time, and the rest is history, however the question would be whether they'd even have tried in the bus market if they hadnt already got the Dominator that not only gave them a manufacturing base but also made them known across the industry. And if the Hong Kong market hadnt taken off for the Dominator, would they have exited the market before trying with the Dart?

 

[Swanny200]

The PMT one was for operational testing by the National Bus Company for comparison with a Bristol VR and their Foden-NC. With that operating territory and a range of low bridges, it had to be low height though it looked a bit sad.

I must admit, the Black headlight surround and also the familiar peaked Alexander dome did make it look a very sad faced bus, M&D seemed to keep a lot of them after the evaluations though, I remember going on it, and the Ailsa's, the Metrobuses, the Willowbrooks and the VRT's until well into the mid 90's until the Palatines and Darts came in, the Darts replacing a few of the double deck routes, mind you it was not unheard of for M&D to stick a double deck on the likes of the 145 which was usually only Merc minibus territory, some of the route being so tight, I'm surprised double decks managed to do a lot of the route.

 

[Tom Gallacher]

Dennis managed to produce the Dart at just the right time, and the rest is history, however the question would be whether they'd even have tried in the bus market if they hadnt already got the Dominator that not only gave them a manufacturing base but also made them known across the industry. And if the Hong Kong market hadnt taken off for the Dominator, would they have exited the market before trying with the Dart?

Ironically Dennis (or Hestair-Dennis to give them their Sunday name) couldn't wait to get rid of it when Duple closed down. They offered it to Carlyle who said that they didn't want to build the complete chassis and body but they would build the body. The rest is history.

 

[retro.kid]

3 originally ordered by Strathclyde's Buses in the wake of the Larkfield fire with Alexander bodies, but ultimately taken on by Mayne's of Clayton & finished with East Lancs bodies after the former cancelled the order at a early stage (entering service there in March 1993 & ultimately registered K36-37 XNE & K38 YVM; I beileve they had Strathclyde reg plates alloted to them early on however; confirmation on whether any of this is true would be greatly appreicated)

These were to be D1-3 (K216-8 OGD)

Ordered for evaluation 08/92 - following the use of a loaned Dominator from Grimsby Cleethorpes Transport (GCT!) which arrived 17/07/92 (94 - J94DJV). This Dominator saw service from Possilpark and Knightswood depots.

SBL Dominators were indeed cancelled 02/93 just as the vehicles were being completed and sold to Mayne's of Clayton instead. I have heard at least one got as far as being painted in SBL colours. Whether this is true, i don't know and would love to see photographic evidence to confirm.

I also heard that SBL still had a contract to honour from East Lancs for x3 bodies - so these were fulfilled as Scania's SS3-5 instead. Indeed looking at PSV Circle news sheets from back then, these were ordered the same month the dominators were cancelled.

As a side note I own ex Central Scottish Dennis Dominator D23 - FGE423X.

 

[90sWereBetter]

What was the reason for Strathclyde cancelling the order, was it as simple as Leyland/Volvo having the capacity at Workington to churn out the chassis quicker than Guildford? Does seems a bit strange that they swapped the order from one type about to go out of production to another (the L-UNS Olympians I think were the very last Leylands for the UK market).

Of course, SBL's successor First Glasgow did end up with a batch of Dominators a decade later, taking the H-KVX batch from First Capital. Surprised they were not concentrated at South Yorkshire to wipe out older ones, but very little of the decision-making at First in the early 2000s makes much sense in hindsight. :P

 

[Strathclyder]

These were to be D1-3 (K216-8 OGD)

Ordered for evaluation 08/92 - following the use of a loaned Dominator from Grimsby Cleethorpes Transport (GCT!) which arrived 17/07/92 (94 - J94DJV). This Dominator saw service from Possilpark and Knightswood depots.

SBL Dominators were indeed cancelled 02/93 just as the vehicles were being completed and sold to Mayne's of Clayton instead. I have heard at least one got as far as being painted in SBL colours. Whether this is true, i don't know and would love to see photographic evidence to confirm.

I also heard that SBL still had a contract to honour from East Lancs for x3 bodies - so these were fulfilled as Scania's SS3-5 instead. Indeed looking at PSV Circle news sheets from back then, these were ordered the same month the dominators were cancelled.

As a side note I own ex Central Scottish Dennis Dominator D23 - FGE423X.

Interesting, cheers for that. Nice to get some confirmation/details at long last (plus the demo vehicle), affirms that I wasn't dreaming when I saw those K-OGD regs being used in reference to these motors a while back. Beileve one of them was confirmed to still be around a few years ago when it appeared for sale on eBay (or somewhere similar); wonder what happened to it.

And yeah, I know of the Scanias (single-deck K93s) you're referring to there, it now makes sense that they were ordered at the same time the Dominators were cancelled. All 3 of them lasted into the First era (one was gutted in a fire at Larkfield in the late 90s along with a Merc Vario, the other two lasted long enough to get national fleetnumbers and Barbie 3/Willowleaf colors).

Ah I see, that's nice to hear. I've been aware of D23 of some time: A GVVT/Bridgeton resident I beileve.

What was the reason for Strathclyde cancelling the order, was it as simple as Leyland/Volvo having the capacity at Workington to churn out the chassis quicker than Guildford? Does seems a bit strange that they swapped the order from one type about to go out of production to another (the L-UNS Olympians I think were the very last Leylands for the UK market).

Of course, SBL's successor First Glasgow did end up with a batch of Dominators a decade later, taking the H-KVX batch from First Capital. Surprised they were not concentrated at South Yorkshire to wipe out older ones, but very little of the decision-making at First in the early 2000s makes much sense in hindsight. :P

3 reasons I'd wager are most likely for Strathclyde plumping for the Leyland Olympian in the end for replacing the Larkfield losses: Type standardization, the cost of the order, or as you say, Workington having the production capcacity to pump the chassis out quicker than Guildford. Either way, even if the Dominator was nearing the end of it's production run by 1992-93, I can't imagine Dennis were all that thrilled at losing out on such a large order. And yeah, that batch of LOs were the last Leyland buses to be produced for the UK market.

Indeed they did (it's a transfer that has always made little sense to me), but said Dominators were shot to pieces by the time they landed in Glasgow - the Tridents that followed them a few years later were brand spanking new by comparison - they weren't known as Detonators by staff for nothing!