Venturing out on Father's Day

Dull , dull, dull. The brightest thing at the North East Bus Preservation Trust 'Father's day Rally' was the badge on this recently restored Leyland Leopard!

6249 UP, is a Leyland Leopard PSU3/3RT/Alexander DP51F. New to Venture Transport as fleet no. 249 in 1963, this vehicle passed to Northern General as fleet number 2830, later 4264. It was withdrawn in 1980 and sold to APT, Lincoln then purchased by the late Michael Reed, a Venture 'family' member and partly restored.

It's now owned by Dave Herron and has been completely restored to as-new condition over recent years. People often ask me if I know how much it costs to restore old buses. The answer is "as much as it takes". You don't know until you strip all the panels off what horrors lurk beneath, and the vendor isn't going to let you do that before you buy it!

Truth is, if you buy a reasonable condition 'wreck' start thinking around £30,000+ if you want to end up with something that will be a 'Concours d'elegance' contender. And be prepared to do a lot of work yourself unless your pockets are very deep! Oh and you might like to think about where you're going to keep it and where you might get parts for a 50 year old vehicle.