Pontypridd’s first two AEC Regent Vs entered service on 1st June 1965 and had Weymann bodies. The Regent V 2MD3RA was the chassis for all subsequent double-deckers bought new by Pontypridd (and even Taff-Ely). The Weymann bodies remained unique to this pair and although they were to the same basic design as the subsequent Metro-Cammell-bodied Regents, there were quite a few differences.
Some of the detailed ones are mentioned in the captions, but the most obvious differences were the nearside fuel tanks (which required them to reverse into the fuel bay) and hopper ventilators. These latter had been a characteristic of Pontypridd’s buses for a few years and the Council pre-empted their more general adoption, but oddly the other Regents weren’t so fitted.
Unusually, the two buses of this batch didn’t have consecutive registrations with 91 being registered ETG 373C and 92 being ETG 388C. The Weymann bodies were of H34/26F layout, to be standard on all the Regent Vs.
Both buses were withdrawn as part of the cull of the Regent V fleet in 1983, by which time they’d run for eighteen years.
© David Beilby
