Leyland Olympian

The Leyland Olympian was a double-decker bus chassis manufactured by Leyland between 1980 and 1993. It was the last Leyland bus model in production.

Construction

The Olympian shared the same chassis and running gear as with the Leyland Titan integral double deck bus which was ordered en masse by London Transport. At the time there was a demand for non-integral vehicles, with operators wishing to have the chassis bodied by other manufacturers. Thus Leyland created the B45 project, which was named Olympian, in 1979. This was in many ways an update of the popular Bristol VRT (Bristol Commercial Vehicles merged with Leyland in 1965), with many VR customers choosing Olympians. Later the Olympian also replaced the Leyland Atlantean.

The Olympian was unveiled at the 1980 Commercial Motor Show. It was available in two lengths, 9.56m and 10.25m. Engines were either the Leyland TL11 unit (an 11.1-litre development of the Leyland 0.680), or the Gardner 6LXB or 6LXCT. Some later Olympians had Cummins L10 engines; one had a 5LXCT.