Dennis Ace YD 9533

As a former Dennis apprentice I was very pleased to see this fine example of Southern National YD 9533 fleet number 3650, a 1934 Dennis Ace bus. It was on display at the Summer Fayre at Aylesford Priory on 22nd June 2014 and I thought you may like to see the very amateur photographs I took.

John Goold
08/2014

15/09/14 - 12:00

Thank you very much John for these lovely pictures of a glorious vehicle - please rest assured that the photos are anything but amateur and are of professional standard both in quality and composition.
I'm happily reminded of the years 1941 - 47 when I was at primary school in Ben Rhydding near Ilkley, West Yorkshire. The "school specials" for the one mile journey were normally full size West Yorkshire single deckers, Bristol/ECW Js Ls or Dennis Lancets, 32/34 seats and seemingly "hundreds" standing and jostling. If no full size bus was available we were many a time treated to two of Ilkley depot's little Dennis Aces and much sport was enjoyed in noisily encouraging the drivers to overtake at intermediate stops so as to pass the winning line first at Ilkley Town Hall - what innocent happy days.
I'm digressing now, but what I meant to say is that I always had quite an objection to the cruel nickname suffered by these fine little vehicles - "Flying pigs." After all, surely we wouldn't be so offensive as to call a person with a somewhat prominent nose a "pig" and the buses were extremely nicely styled in such a way that everything seemed "designed in" rather than "added on." Small the Aces may well have been, but they magically incorporated every "big bus" quality feature imaginable, even to ECW luggage racks and those beautiful "lantern" interior lights. Sorry to say that even in those innocent days five year old lads were prone to altering the transfer "To seat 20 passengers" by scraping off the "s" of "seat" while the harrassed conductor struggled with a reluctant and naughty Bellgraphic ticket machine in the five minute journey.

Chris Youhill

16/09/14 - 07:53

I thought of these Aces recently when in Austria. One Postbus had a very short wheelbase (typically about 4.3 according to the net on a length of 9.7) which enabled it to u-turn across a normal roadwidth and of course do hairpins in style. This was a MAN but they also seem to be by Scania. Again, we do things first, and then...

Joe

16/09/14 - 07:54

As someone who is a pig lover - and all things porcine - and nearly received a present of a Vietnamese Pot-bellied Pig I think Flying Pig is quite apt if the little porkers were capable of a fair turn of speed.

David Oldfield

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