Flxible Clipper buses

This is stored with a collection of unrestored older buses in the depot of a major route operator.
On a closer view, I suspect that there is a second one behind it. The shed was very congested; photography was not easy.

080223Sa-P1020822-Geelong-FlxibleClipper-RSmith.jpg

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Roderick,
Guess this photo is a few years old? If it's what I think it is that collection has been dispersed in part or whole, no doubt related to the sale of the business.

The one in the background is most likely AF131. Current whereabouts and availability could be ascertained from the Flxible Clipper Club is anyone were interested

Feb.08: I always use the reverse date in my file names.
This isn't the Masterton fleet, on the Bellarine side of the city; this is the major transit operator, vaguely in West Geelong.
I haven't got a better glimpse of the rear one, but I do have a photo showing the front of the nearer one to offer a hint about the former operator: I am guessing that the livery is its last operational one.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Reckon we're talking about the same place Roderick.

If you'd looked in the back of the rear one you would have seen a GM 6V53, o/d 5 speed Inter box and a Rockwell diff.

Roderick,

Fascinating stuff - thanks for posting.

I got pics too:




It is not the US - More to come later this week...

Cheers,

T

G'Day All,

Well, as promised. The USS Constitution is not docking in NY and the bus is not somewhere in Arizona... The pics were taken in Israel in 1953 by Fritz Schlezinger and show one of the few Flxibles used by the Israel Tourist Service Corp. to ferry visitors to the land in unheard of luxury. In fact, compared to what was thought of as state of the art buses over there they were like spaceships - the typical Israeli bus was really a truck with a very austere bodywork, in many cases not even having any upholstery - wooden seats is what you got. There was a good reason - "roads" were as bad as anything downunder.

For example:



pic from www.egged.co.il/main.asp?lngCategoryID=5242 - this is the Tel-Aviv to Eilat route, laughable (in Aussie terms) 370 k but back then it took the good part of 20 hours, and some times you got attacked by the neighbours, so IDF escort was provided.

Now compare the above with that:





and it had... proper seats!



They would not having been laughing in the Jimmy I bet.

The driver was a happy chappy too, what with no screaming two stroker + heat to contend with (I believe the Israeli Flxibles had Buick straight-eights by the way):



More later : )

Cheers,

T

Those were wonderful photos of Flxible Clippers in Israel: they make my crossing of the Andes in Peru look civilised. Some corners were so precarious that we had to alight and walk ahead: if the bus didn't topple over, we reboarded.

Here is the front of the Geelong one, for which I posted the rear a few days ago. I don't think that there is a second beside it: that seems to be a reflection.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Always thought those Ansett Clipper coaches had a V6 Deutz out the back.
They certainly sat you back in the seat, heaps of low RPM torque.

Not that it matters, but there is definitely another one behind - see the two air scoops, the pale yellow rump and some tail lights.

Those were wonderful photos of Flxible Clippers in Israel: they make my crossing of the Andes in Peru look civilised. Some corners were so precarious that we had to alight and walk ahead: if the bus didn't topple over, we reboarded.

Roderick,

If you refer to the Bolivian "death road" well I don't think the Tel-Aviv - Eilat roard claimed so many lives for the simple reason that in the 1950s it was nowhere as near as frequented as the Bolivian route, you could wait many hours before any vehicle would come by. Also, because of the possibility of ambushes they would usually travel in a convoy and time the meeting so that this took place on the Arava plains. Terrorist attacks were as said a hazard - there was one norious attack in 1954 where Arab Fedayun crossed the border from Jordan and killed 11 passengers. Another took place in 1956 and was a further reason for Israel to join England and France in what turned out to be the Suez war. Of course, as the pic shows, the road intself was bad enough - particularly notorious was Ma