I have also seen these converted into fantastic mobile homes. Then, when you close for the evening, you can drive your restaurant home and choose a different location to operate from tomorrow. Imagine being able to temporarily open a restaurant on a high cliff-top overlooking the ocean on a beautiful day, and to serve meals to customers as they watch the sun setting over the ocean. I have also seen these used as a mobile cafe or restaurant, allowing the owner to temporarily set up operations wherever they perceive a need or an opportunity. It would make a great vehicle for scenic bus tours, and many retired Routemasters have found a new life in that sort of service. Regardless of whether this is an AEC or a Leyland engine, both are pretty robust and as staggering as it might seem, they are capable of clocking incredible mileage (½ a million miles or more) quite easily.īuying and owning a genuine London double-decker bus sounds like an interesting proposition, but then you have to ask the question, “What would I do with it?” It is a good question, and this is where you can really let your imagination loose. The owner states that the engine did run, which I would take to mean that it currently doesn’t. Having said that, a reversing camera is a wise investment. The most difficult task can be reversing the vehicle, but this becomes easier with practice. Most people would expect the RM to be a heavy and cumbersome vehicle, but with power steering, power/hydraulic brakes, and automatic transmission as standard features, these giants are surprisingly easy to operate.
Regardless of whether it is an AEC or a Leyland unit, the power output would be somewhere between 115 and 125hp. It isn’t clear which engine is fitted to the Routemaster because there were three different units used during the vehicle’s manufacturing life.
However, it is a vehicle that can provide a surprise or two for any person who slips behind the wheel for the first time. This did happen, and people did lose their lives in such incidents.Īt 27½’ in total length, the Routemaster is by no means a small vehicle. It was this feature that eventually spelled the end of the line for the RM because the authorities recognized that this made it very easy for occupants to accidentally fall off the back of the vehicle whilst it was on the move. Being an RM, it does feature an open rear entrance deck. The panels look straight and crisp, while there are no obvious issues or problems with the glass. That makes me feel fairly confident that all should be well in that area. The owner doesn’t indicate whether there are any potential issues with the subframes, but they have never been notorious for problems. This allowed the Routemaster to be significantly lighter than its competition, improving performance and economy, whilst minimizing potential rust issues. While most buses of the era (and many today) utilize a fiberglass or aluminum body on a heavy steel frame, the Routemaster made use of steel front and rear subframes to mount the drivetrain and suspension, with the remaining structure and body manufactured largely from aluminum. When it was released, the Routemaster represented a radical design departure in the bus industry. Our feature vehicle is a Model RM and was produced by AEC (Associated Equipment Company) in 1964. They were produced in a number of different models and variations, the most common of these being the Model RM, of which 2,123 vehicles were built between 19. The first one entered regular service in 1959, and the Routemaster remained active throughout London in various guises right through until the end of 2005. The Routemaster proved to be something of a hardy survivor. The owner has set the sale price for this beauty at $30,000. The Routemaster is located in Fort Worth, Texas, and has been listed for sale here on Barn Finds Classifieds. Today, retired Routemasters are used for a multitude of different purposes, and this 1964 model represents an opportunity for someone to take a gentle giant and to transform it into something special. So beloved was the original Routemaster double-decker, that when the time came for it to finally be retired, its replacement was a modern interpretation of the same basic concept.
When people think of the London streetscape, more often than not, it is those two vehicles that will appear somewhere in their imaginations.
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