MORRIS SINGLE-DECKER BUS

Reg No: OV 4090 - new 1931
Operator: Birmingham Corporation
Chassis: Morris Dictator
Engine: Morris 7.7 litre 6 cyl. petrol
Gearbox: Crash
Body: Metro-Cammell 34 seats

Photograph ©R.A.Mills

Full size buses by Morris-Commercial always were rare so preserved ones are even rarer! The decision by Birmingham Corporation to buy their buses at the height of the depression in 1931-3 was no doubt influenced by them being made in Birmingham. The bodies were also Birmingham built by Metro-Cammell, then new to bus building but offering an excellent all-metal structure.

The first ten were Dictator single-deckers, a model name which went out of fashion a couple of years later, courtesy A. Hitler. The design incorporated a detachable front sub-frame on which gearbox and six cylinder petrol engine and could roll away on the front axle, after the removal of a few bolts.

OV 4090 entered service as bus 90 on Armistice Day 11 November 1931. Most of its early life was from Tennant St, Edgbason, garage and, during the war, it became an ambulance. It was one of five of the class at Perry Barr garage when withdrawn in December 1945. It was sold to a scrap dealer in 1946 but escaped the torch. Vehicles of any kind were hard to obtain just after the war so 90 became the unusual choice of the General Manager of the Metro-Cammell bus building division for conversion to a mobile home. Some body refurbishment evidently took place during the conversion, including the style of glazing now carried. After many years in its new role it was, by the end of the 60s, disused at the back of Metro-Cammell’s Elmdon works. Remarkably the veteran was purchased by a Droitwich-based contractor for use as a workmen’s mess room and, later still, sold to an Earlswood farmer to be a store shed. Thankfully 90 passed into preservation in 1971 and became one of BaMMOT’s original vehicles.

90 was repainted into BCT colours in 1974 to attend the ‘50 Years of Morris-Commercial’ celebrations. It had been returned to running order and astounded those present by running under its own power, a performance subsequently repeated on necessarily very rare occasions here at Wythall!

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