Episode: 1:5 A Slow Bus to Chingford
Del Boy gets Rodney a job as night security guard at a bus company. Using the company's open top bus Del tries to run a tour company ('Trotter's Ethnic Tours').
'Scenes were filmed inside Grey Green's Stamford Hill garage alongside rows of Duple Dominant II coaches' (thanks Graeme Selway) - due to the lighting only Bedford YMT/Duple Dominant II VYU757S is identifiable:
The main star however is Grey Green's Leyland Titan
PD2/12 open topper 106 (KCH106). Body is by MCW; the bus was new to Trent in 1956. Much of the latter half of the
episode is shot on the lower deck:
Episode: 3:17 Healthy Competition
Howard Berry recalls:
"Rodney and Mickey Pearce have bought a load of scrap lawn mower engines. In the background of the yard where they collect their 'goods' is what appears to be an ECW bodied Bristol MW coach."
Episode: 47 The Jolly Boys' Outing (Christmas Special 1989)
"Del organises the annual day trip to Margate and the show features one time Excelsior Ford R1114/Plaxton Elite PEL 915M lettered for "Percy's Luxury Tours of Peckham".
Due to a faulty radio installed in the dashboard (supplied by Del, of course) the coach ends up exploding whilst parked in Margate coach park."
(thanks Graham Selway). The coach
"was bought by the show's production team for use in the episode (reportedly for £2000), rather than hired. The sequence of the coach exploding in Margate's coach park consisted of no less than six different shots pieced together but from what I can remember, the coach exploded "to order" which meant that no further re-explosions were needed." (thanks Steven Oliver)
Steven's diligent research in 'The Complete A-Z of Only Fools and Horses' throws a new light on this classic episode:
"There were actually two identical coaches bought and used for the episode; one (presumably the real PEL915M) for filming the scenes of the Jolly Boys travelling to Margate, with the second one, carrying the same registration, used for the sequences of the coach blowing up. This one was handed over to the show's visual effects team to rig up for the explosion sequence, as according to one of the production crew 'it was on its last legs anyway'. Presumably this allowed the real PEL915M to be sold on." However, the shots of the coach on the road and in the car park look uncannily similar to me, so I'm not convinced......Also seen in the coach park in Margate are coaches with Plaxton Paramount and Duple Dominant bodywork, and a Plaxton Supreme-bodied coach also passes:
The lads arrive home on UAY209S, a Bedford YMT/Duple Dominant II:
Episode: Go West Young Man
Iain Wilson is hoping to trace a coach seen in the background of a scene in which Del and Rodney examine an old rusty Mark 2 Ford Cortina at Boycie's garage. Help!?
