The launch of a fresh look for the airport services of

Thursday evening, 11th April 2002, saw a large gathering of interested people, including local travel agents, airline representatives, other travel people and company representatives meet at The Kassam Stadium to celebrate the launch of six brand new coaches and a new image for what was The Oxford express to the airports of Gatwick and Heathrow.

The Oxford Bus Company has taken delivery of a fleet of six Volvo B12Bs with Jonckheere Mistral 50 bodywork seating 46 with toilet facilities. The coaches feature full air conditioning, reclining seats with three point seat belts.

With a 12 litre engine these coaches are much more powerful than the existing B10Ms and provide the driver with "all mod cons" including a computer to assess average speed, fuel consumption, trip times and a read out which even gives fleet number and chassis number. They perform very well indeed and maintain 62mph up "Stokenchurch" as the hill after M40 junction 6 on the way to London is known.

The brand new coaches seating 46 passengers introduce additional passenger comforts with more leg room and for the first time in the history of the company toilet and washroom facilities.

Representing an investment of over £1 million this emphasises the company's commitment to improving service to their passengers.

The exterior and interior views show the striking livery applied to the new fleet and the very comfortable interior as seen in first picture above.

The first service with the new coaches was the midnight departure to Gatwick via Heathrow on the 12th April using coach 33 and 31 followed on the 0200 service.

An innovation for Oxford's coaches, is the application of slogans on the rear of each coach, which will make identification easy when one gets used to which slogan each one carries. This coupled with a large rear destination display makes the coaches outstanding on the road.

New horizons indeed, 33 seen at North Terminal Gatwick on Saturday last.

Liberty is another theme of the rear end slogans. This is the one on 34 seen at Gloucester Green.

From an operational point of view, much work has gone into revising the diagrams of each journey and it is now normal for the coach to return to Cowley Road garage after each trip for a wash and brush up including a toilet drop. As the coach feature large driving mirrors they are not allowed through the bus wash at the garage and are hand washed. This should mean that they will retain that new look for a while longer than when coaches are mechanically washed.

"Warm Front" has a wash, the spray looks like steam from that warm front. this is 32.

The Gatwick service is 2 hours running from Oxford and passengers may alight at either South or North Terminals. At the launch a major prize for guests to win was flights on US Air to any one of their worldwide destinations from Gatwick. Winners should enjoy their coach ride to Gatwick in the comfort of the new Volvos. It is expected that more similar coaches will join the fleet in due course.

At the launch in Oxford, guests were given a run out on one of the new coaches, 29 and were all most impressed by the comfort. At the same time I was able to get the shot below of Philip Kirk, Managing Director of Oxford Bus receiving the keys to one of the new coaches from a Adrian Wickens of Volvo.

Nigel Eggleton, Commercial Director of Oxford Bus with Philip Kirk, Managing Director who
receives the keys from Adrian Wickens of Volvo.
Nigel has been very involved with new livery and image.
Best Impressions were employed to design the new livery and all aspects of the branding.