The Optare Visionaire (introduced in 2006 as the East Lancs Visionaire, and branded the Darwen Visionaire between 2007 and 2008) is an open top double-decker bus body built by Optare. It is in terms of engineering an open top Olympus (itself a double-decker variant of the Esteem) in all but name. The Optare Visionaire was also built for tri-axle double-decker bus chassis.

History

The first orders were made in November 2006 by

Arriva Arriva Ltd. is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England. The company was originally established on 24 October 1938 as T Cowie Ltd. Initially focused on the sale of motorcycles, it relaunched shortl ...

's The Original Tour for a £1.6 million order for ten, built on

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's B9TL Euro IV chassis. These all entered service and were the only order for the ''East Lancs'' Visionaire.

Acquisition by Darwen

After East Lancs went into administration in 2007, the business was bought by the

Darwen Group The Darwen Group was a bus manufacturer located in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. The company originated from the purchase of East Lancashire Coachbuilders who went into administration in August 2007. After a series of developments, in June 20 ...

, and the East Lancs Visionaire was renamed the Darwen Visionaire. During this time, an order was received for a number of Visionaires.Omnibus blog - "Managing growth is sometimes far more difficult than managing decline…"
Accessed 1 September 2008 An open top single-decker bus, the Panaire, was also offered at the time and none were built.

Reverse takeover by Optare

Since the order for the Darwen Visionaires,

performed a

reverse takeover A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public compa ...

with Optare. Ten Optare Visionaires entered service on

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London tour. These were ordered in the Darwen period, but have been built under the new Optare name. Therefore, no Visionaires were built under the Darwen name, despite orders being taken. Wilts & Dorset received 9 Visionaires for use on the Purbeck Breezer services linking

Swanage Swanage () is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck and one of its two towns, approximately south of Poole and east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. In the Unit ...

with Wareham,

Poole Poole () is a coastal town and seaport on the south coast of England in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area in Dorset, England. The town is east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east ...

and

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. Today this operates under morebus.

References

{{Optare timeline, state=collapsed Visionaire Vehicles introduced in 2006 Open-top buses Low-floor buses Double-decker buses Tri-axle buses

History

Acquisition by Darwen

Reverse takeover by Optare

See also

References