We are delighted to welcome a very special vehicle to the Transport Festival for 2001. This superb machine, owned and restored by the renowned Mike Sutcliffe, started its long and distinguished career in July 1914. Owned by the London and North Western Railway she operated a service from Rhos on Sea Pier to the railway station at Colwyn Bay. It is believed that the major beneficiaries of this service were wealthy businessmen from the Manchester cotton trade who preferred the sea air to the industrial grime.

After only a short while, at the outbreak of World War 1, she was requisitioned by the War Office and presumably sent to France where she would have served alongside so many other early buses and lorries carrying troops and supplies. Surplus to requirements after the war, she was purchased from the 'Slough Sump' in 1919 and began a new life as a builder's lorry registered AX8086.

Finally, in the 1990's, she was found in a barn in a very sorry condition. As the barn doors could not be opened, she was dismantled and passed out through a window. In another miracle, a charabanc body of the correct type was found hanging in the roof of a Lancashire garage. It appears that the body was removed from its chassis for conversion, and left in case it was ever needed.

After a five year restoration programme we are delighted at her return to her spiritual home and grateful to Mike and Pat Sutcliffe for bringing her to Llandudno.

Last year's special guest was the ex-Llandudno DENNIS TOASTRACK CHARABANC.