Lincolnshire Road Car Company
1958
Bristol MW5G
ECW DP41F

Another photo taken in Scarborough coach park of a Bristol ‘MW’ series single decker but this time in the fleet of the Lincolnshire Road Car Company Ltd. This vehicle was classed as ‘dual purpose’ meaning it was a bus with ‘nearly but not quite’ a coach standard of interior. I do like the paint work on this bus the step in the cream ¾s way down the side makes a big difference. 
The ‘5G’ after the ‘MW’ in the ‘MW’ series letters above means that this bus had a Gardner 5HLW engine which was a 5 cylinder 7.0 litre horizontal diesel engine. If the ‘MW’ had been followed by ‘6G’ it would of had a Gardner 6HLW engine which was a 6 cylinder 8.4 litre horizontal diesel engine. As far as I know only these two engines were available with the ‘MW’ series, meaning no Bristol engine, if you know different let me know.

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Although as you rightly state, the Bristol MW was only available with the Gardner 5HLW or 6HLW engine, one was fitted experimentally with a Bristol engine, but never operated in service as such. This was an early MW chassis bodied by ECW with a bus shell, and it was returned to Bristol Commercial Vehicles as a test-bed vehicle. The engine was in itself experimental – being a horizontal version of the BVW 8.9 litre unit and known as the BHW. In 1963, the MW6B (as it would have been known) was re-engined with a Gardner 6HLW unit. Its body was then completed to 45-seat bus layout, and it entered service with Red & White as their U1563 (228JAX). Another BHW-engined Bristol test-bed vehicle appeared in 1963 in the shape of a prototype RELH chassis fitted with an ECW coach shell. Whether this was fitted with the engine from the MW I do not know, as apparently Bristol had built several BHWs for experimental use. The engine in the RELH6B test vehicle also had a turbocharger fitted to increase power. However, the BHW engine never entered production, and later the vehicle (chassis number REX003) was given a Gardner 6HLX engine and its body fitted out to full 47-seat coach specification. It then entered service with West Yorkshire as its CRG1 (OWT241E) in 1967.

Brendan Smith