Last week we reviewed one of Australia’s most iconic intercity/touring coaches; the GM Denning Mono. This week let’s look at the bus that had the unenviable job of replacing it.
Denning knew it had a hit with the Mono, and took a careful and measured approach in designing its replacement. It kept most of the Mono’s proven features, and made improvements to its few imperfections. Starting with the styling, it got rid of the notched roof replacing it with a smooth flat surface from front to rear, with a slight curve downward near the front windshield. The old separate visible pillared windows were blacked out and the fluted stainless steel siding was axed. These updates improved not only its appearance but its aerodynamics as well.
Standard powerplant was GM’s Silver 6V92TTA with 350 hp and 1020 ft. lbs. of torque. Optional was the 8V92TA with 435 hp and 1252 ft. lbs. Transmissions were a 6-speed Spicer manual or an Allison automatic.
Denning soon offered two additional versions to the standard model; first were the Hi-Screen and Hi-Deck, which raised the front windshield up to a flat straight roof. More extensive was the “Double-Deck” – a true double-decker, with a 500 hp version of the 8V92TA.
While these coaches were as popular as ever, Denning as a company was having some challenges. In 2004 the company’s founder, Alan Denning retired and sold the business. It has since transferred a number of times but exists today as “Custom Denning” and produces the Endeavour urban transit bus and the Adventurer touring coach. It just recently introduced a BEV model, the Element.
Fun fact: How did Denning come up with the “Landseer” name? One theory is that it’s a mish-mash of “land-seeing”, but the more accepted one is Landseer is the name of the street where the Denning plant at Acacia Ridge, Queensland, was located.
More great research and pics Jim, on the evolution of the Denning intercity coach. I actually preferred the earlier Buffalo-style notched roof. More classic and iconic, if dated. These designs appearing, somewhat more homogeneous.
Pretty ambitious to build a double decker in a somewhat limited market. I wonder how many they built. They just have not caught on much, certainly not in the US.
Seems same here Paul – looks like only 42 were built, but quite a few still remain in service.
https://www.busnews.com.au/video-review-1990-denning-landseer-double-decker/
Limited market, yes, but within that market, the tourism factor is economically huge: we had about 7.4 million visitors 2023-24, which is over a quarter of the existing population. And many of them will want to take the touristy trails to Uluru and the outback, in a bus.
As to double-deckers, I seem to see them a fair bit here near tourist areas, though that’s of course just anecdotal.
(The figure above makes me laugh. Oz is probably the world’s most multicultural place, but the dominant narrative still has plenty of white racism, deriving from its long, long history right into the not-so-long-ago, in-my-lifetime past, and if the twits who push those ideas understood that such a fair chunk of their bread n’ butter was coming from such a “swarm” of foreigners a quarter the size of the population, they might – might – just have pause for thought. But I’m well-digressing and will stop!)
Thanks, Jim, yet more info I didn’t know.
A bit sheepishly, I must admit I had actually always presumed Denning was English, probably because there was a famous and very influential (and eccentric) Law Lord in England called Lord Denning, who was around from the late ’60’s through to the ’80’s.
(His Lordship Lord Denning, a Law Lord – lord help us! – sat in the House of Lords, which was the highest appeal court in the UK, and, indirectly, for ‘er Maj’s loyal colonies like the place where that there Denning was made, until that function was abolished in about 2009, though thank the lord, we got rid of the Lords being our ultimate judicial deciders and lording it all over us, in 1986).I doubt he ever caught a bus.