Additional Information
The combination of this chassis and body make this bus the oldest surviving example of the work of the UK bus industry's two most influential bus designers of all time, G.J. (John) Rackham and Colin Bailey and as such is of great historic significance.
Rackham, whose career had commenced with the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) before the First World War had spent four years in the USA in the early 1920's and recognised the advantage of low swept chassis frame for bus development whilst employed by Yellow (later part of General Motors) in Chicago.
In 1926 he returned to England to join Leyland Motors as Chief Engineer and was responsible for the groundbreaking Titan and Tiger models, which rendered all competitors' products, obsolete overnight.
AEC, then part of the powerful Underground Group that provided most of London's public transport, was concerened that its subsidiary would be left behind in the development of competitive vehicles.
In modern parlance, Rackham was "headhunted" from Leyland and joined AEC as Chief Engineer in July 1928 at the end of the AEC-Daimler partnership ADC.
His brief was simple; design modern vehicles that would put AEC at the head of the design and innovation race and turn the company's fortunes around.
His first completely new design for AEC was the Regent double deck bus chassis, which was an obvious development of the Leyland Titan. The main improvement of the Regent over the Titan was a more compact "packaging" of the front end reducing bonnet length and increasing the length of the passenger space within the same overall length.
The radiator surmounted by a triangular badge was to become a design classic; even Regents built up to 30 years later had the same general appearance to the uninitiated eye.
The Regent was an immediate success with Birmingham Corporation ordering the first large production batch including two early pre-production chassis. This was some months before London General placed theirs into service.
All of Birmingham's Regents had timber framed bodies except for two protype metal bodies delivered in 1930 and the last 20 delivered over the winter of 1931 - 1932.
Metropolitan Cammell, through its forebear Joseph Wright & Co, was established in Saltley, Birmingham in 1845 as a manufacturer of railway rolling stock.
Like similar manufacturers in the 1920's after the grouping of the railways into the "big four" and consequent reduction in its potential home market, Metropolitan Cammell decided to diversify into bus body manufacturer.
Steel body structures common in railway carriage construction because of safety issues with timber bodies "telescoping" in accidents were being seen as relevant in bus body construction.
Metropolitan Cammell were not the first in the field but developed the most successful and widely copied steel bus structure, based on a "top-hat" shaped pillar, rolled from mild steel tube, with a timber insert that made panel replacement an easy task.
Ironically Bailey was "headhunted" in the mid 1930's by Leyland, after their initial design of all-metal body had proven unsatisfactory. Bailey turned their fortunes as a body manufacturer round to become a major supplier...
The Metropolitan Cammell "top-hat" pillar section was supplied under licence to other manufacturers, so simple was the concept it was difficult to improve upon. Such bodywork found a world market and built an enviable reputation for durability and longevity in difficult operating conditions. Even today, although materials have changed, the "top-hat" pillar design concept lives on in some of today's buses.
