Coventry Buses 1948-1974

Coventry’s buses had first entered service in 1914, supplementing the tram network. The city’s transport network was heavily damaged by bombing during the Second World War. After the end of the war and the end of austerity, new Daimler buses began to arrive in the city to replace the austerity and producer gas vehicles run during the war years, and those provided by other operators to cover the gaps in service created by the loss of the city’s trams and by the loss of buses to the bombing. Some Maudslays and other models notwithstanding, the core of the Coventry fleet remained Daimlers right through until Coventry Corporation Transport was absorbed into the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive on 1 April 1974. In this book, David Harvey uses his unique collection of photographs to take a look at the post-war history of the Coventry bus network from 1948 to 1974.