The Guy Wulfrunian (Pictured below) - I
thought it was only one operator, but Wikipedia tells me otherwise
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Of 137 vehicles built, 126 went to West Riding. A further four were acquired second hand and put into service, two from County Motors of Lepton and one each from West Wales and Lancashire United. Two demonstrator vehicle were acquired from Guy but were cannibalised for spares.
Bizarre front engined, front entrance buses that bore a passing resemblance to other vehicles at the time.
West Riding was indeed the Wulfrunian's largest customer/operator, but they weren't the only ones as you correctly state. The two Guy demonstrators aside, County Motors of Lepton (one of which is now one of only two intact survivors), Wolverhampton & Accrington all took 2 examples each, while West Wales, Bury & Lancashire United each took a solitary example. The Lancashire example was the only Wulfrunian bodied by Northern Counties, while the Wolverhampton, West Wales & Accrington examples had East Lancs bodies (5 total); all the rest (131) had bodywork by Roe.
The Wulfrunian is perhaps the poster-child for the term 'blunderbus', a title it often shares interchangeably with the Daimler Roadliner. While the Roadliner's woes were partially cured by a new powerplant in place of the notorious Cummins V6 (a Perkins V8 was among the options available), the Guy's problems were arguably far more acute. It being the first bus design to feature disc brakes, independent front suspension and air suspension is indeed noteworthy and ahead of it's time. It'd be all the more noteworthy if these features had been properly tested before production started. What didn't help was that all these features were crammed into the front with a full-size Gardner 6LX, this in turn had a negative effect on weight distribution (not to mention a cramped, hot and noisy driver's cab, a issue that would bedevil all front-engined, front entrance double-deck designs), as can clearly be seen in the image above. Have never seen another bus with that level of negative camber on the front wheels! Needless to say, problems with suspension and brakes were ten-a-penny, reliabilty suffered and Wulfrunian sales completely dried up; the last examples to enter service did so with West Riding in January 1965.
The Wulfrunian wouldn't be the only front-engined, front entrance double-deck design built with the Guy name affixed: I am of course referring to the Victory J (which would lead into the Leyland Victory Mk.2).
