The Alexander Dennis Thread

[osiris87]

What with all the current gloom over British manufacturing I thought I might just create this thread to cheer some of you up. Despite what you may think, there is still a major British owned vehicle manufacturer in existence that's also profitable (and it's not LTI). I expect most of you will never have heard of the company, despite the fact that millions of people use their products everyday. The company I'm referring to is Alexander Dennis, Britain's largest bus manufacturer!
www.alexander-dennis.com/

Ok, so buses don't really do it for me either, but looking through their site at the facts and news sections is quite an uplifting experience. For a start the company unashamedly admits it is 100% British owned, and judging from several bulletins, they seem to support other British suppliers too. What's more, they seem to be doing rather well:

*The Alexander Dennis Dart is Europe’s biggest selling midibus.
*The Alexander Dennis Trident is the world’s best selling double deck bus.


Apart from supplying buses to operators in this country, they're apparently big in Hong Kong, and also recently won £50 million worth of orders for the US, which the site assures me is an especially tough market to crack. They're also investing heavily into hybrid engine technology for their future buses, which seems to be a wise move to me considering the increasing emphasis on green issues.

So if you're ever feeling mournful about the demise of MG Rover I'd definitely recommend checking out the site and wikipedia article for a morale boost. It may not be a car company, but then nor are LDV and we all seem to be backing them. So why not AD too.

[hongkong]

Yes, Dennis are indeed big in Hong Kong. They dominate the market for double-deck buses and sell to all the major operators here, including KMB, which is AFAIK one of the largest bus operators in the world. This is nothing new -- Dennis have been selling to Hong Kong since at least the 1970s. Leyland also used to be a big supplier, and it's pleasing to see that KMB and others have continued to order British buses.

I do wonder though why Dennis have not entered the coach market here -- there is a huge demand for cross-border coaches and tour coaches, and currently the demand is met by Volvo, Scania, Nissan and Isuzu. I note from the Alexander Dennis website that they do manufacture coaches, so why not sell them here and benefit from the wide recognition the brand has?

[clarkea1]

Nice to see some good news for once! Optare are also doing rather well - british owned and were formed from the remains of a coachbuilder which was closed by BL.

[macarony]

Who supplies the engines and gearboxes?

[clarkea1]

For the Alexander Dennis buses, they mainly use Cummins engines (although some of the double deckers use Caterpillar engines) with a choice of Voith, ZF or Allison transmissions.

Optare use a range of engines from IVECO, Merc, MAN or Cummins, with Allison or ZF transmissions

Whilst we're on the subject, Wrightbus in Northern Ireland seem to be doing quite well also.

[Steed]

Didn't they go into 'bus't (!!) when they were called TransBus just a couple of years ago and were only saved when the guy behind StageCoach decided to buy them up?

If it hadn't been for him, they would have been yet another ex-manufacturer in the UK. Just goes to show that if a company has someone who knows what they are doing in charge they can thrive here...

[iburnley]

As well as those already mentioned there is also East Lancs Coachbuilders and Plaxtons, addmitidly these two along with Wrights frequently use foreign chassis as well as engines but at least they are still partly UK made, while Dennis have their own chassis, and Optare use integral designs.

I suspect this companies can survive because the development costs for buses are lower than volume car manufacture especially if you use such as a chassis from the major manufacturers such as Volvo etc.

Yes there is still some manufacturing in this country but for how long?

[AndrewPorter]

Alexander Dennis do make their own chassis.

The UK bus industry seems to be doing well right now - shame most of the chassis are now foreign (blame Volvo's lack of ethics for that).

[hongkong]

Dennis certainly seem to be on the up at the moment -- they have just gone into partnership with MST, a division of Rolls-Royce, to develop hybrid technology. This seems to be ahead of the curve, and could be a real winner.

[hongkong]

Good news to hear about Dennis's recent success in North America. They have just clinched a GBP 50 million order over there, the biggest ever by a British bus manufacturer.

I do wonder why Dennis haven't entered the Australian market. I was there recently, and everything is Mercedes, Volvo or Scania. Is there a local partner they could tie up with?

[osiris87]

Yeah the owner of Stagecoach was one of the white knights who bought into the collapsed Transbus, and since then Stagecoach always seem to buy AD models which can only be a good thing.

I've just thought of something really cynical on the flipside though: Do you think Stagecoach's rivals might now avoid buying AD buses so as not to plug Stagecoach's investment? All the new First buses back in Yorkshire seem to be Volvo variants atm, so you never know...