The Royal Parade & The Plymouth Atlantean Ruled for Decades

One hears all sorts of tales of woe concerning early Atlanteans but not only did many operator's keep buying them some like Plymouth bought nothing else till the Leyland National came into vogue. After buying the basic early style MCW bodied buses for a number of years a more interesting bodywork variety crept in and none of them were ugly, and I thought this style of quite traditional East Lancs body was particularly attractive with the neatly added curved front. By the time these last buses were delivered in the late Eighties like ATK 155W the Atlantean had in it's new guise as an AN68 evolved into a good reliable bus and in the same way the Tiger was a disappointment following the rugged Leopard the same could be said about the underfunded Olympian. Atlanteans ruled here but the three similarly bodied Olympians tried were soon dispensed with.