The Crossley Mancunian was a commercial vehicle chassis produced by

Crossley Motors Crossley Motors was an English motor vehicle manufacturer based in Manchester, England. It produced approximately 19,000 cars from 1904 until 1938, 5,500 buses from 1926 until 1958, and 21,000 goods and military vehicles from 1914 to ...

from 1934 until 1941. It was of the

front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout A front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout (FR), also called Système Panhard is a powertrain layout with an engine in front and rear-wheel-drive, connected via a drive shaft. This arrangement, with the engine straddling the front axle, was the t ...

with

forward control Cab-over, also known as cab over engine (COE), cab forward or flat face (U.S.), flat nose (Canada), or forward control (UK), is a body style of truck, bus, or van that has a vertical front, "flat face" or a semi-hood, with the cab of the t ...

, sold as a bare chassis including engine, transmission and driving controls, and was intended to be fitted with double deck bodywork built either by Crossley or by an outside

coachbuilder A coachbuilder manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles. The trade of producing coachwork began with bodies for horse-drawn vehicles. Today it includes custom automobiles, buses, Coach (bus), motor coaches, and passenger car (rai ...

. Crossley Motors had produced

rolling chassis A rolling chassis is the fully-assembled chassis of a motor vehicle (car, truck, bus, or other vehicle) without its coachwork, bodywork. It is equipped with running gear (engine and drivetrain) and ready for delivery to a coachbuilder to be compl ...

suitable for buses since 1928, and the principal models of the early 1930s were the

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

and

Condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua language, Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. One species, the And ...

, intended for single- and double-deck bodywork respectively. Crossley had also been manufacturing

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...

s (also known as oil engines) from 1930, which were available as an option on the Alpha and Condor models. Crossley's factories were in and around Manchester, and

Manchester Corporation Manchester City Council is the local authority for the city of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester has had an elected local authority since 1838, which has been reformed several times. Since 1974 the council has been a metropol ...

had a policy to support local industry – hence, Crossley's biggest customer for its bus chassis was

Manchester Corporation Transport Between 1901 and 1949 Manchester Corporation Tramways (known as Manchester Corporation Transport Department from 1929 onwards) was the municipal operator of electric tram services in Manchester, England. At its peak in 1928, the organisation ca ...

(MCT). In the early 1930s, MCT produced a double-deck bus chassis specification, and to satisfy that, Crossley developed the Mancunian chassis. This used a new version of their oil engine, utilising a Ricardo Comet cylinder head, and having a displacement of ; other changes from the design of the Condor included the gearbox, which was fitted to the rear of the engine instead of part-way along the chassis. The Mancunian was launched in 1934, and having provided the specification the principal customer was therefore MCT, which took well over 400. Other customers bought far fewer, and included Ashton-under-Lyne Corporation (which took 18), Maidstone Corporation (12), Northampton Corporation (11), Warrington Corporation (11), Salford Corporation (9) and Oldham Corporation (6). Several other towns bought one or two each. Production ended in 1941, by which time a little over 500 had been built – about seventy that were on order (mainly for MCT) at the outbreak of war were subsequently cancelled. In addition, 22 of the Crossley Alpha single-deck chassis (twenty for MCT in 1937 and two for Sunderland Corporation in 1939) were badged as Mancunians since they were equipped with the same engine and transmission.

Sources

* * *{{cite book , last=Wise , first=G.B. , title=Bus & Coach Recognition: Veteran & Vintage , year=1989 , publisher= Ian Allan , location=Shepperton , isbn=0-7110-1858-8 , pages=84–85 Buses of the United Kingdom Double-decker buses Vehicles introduced in 1934 Half-cab buses