The Plaxton Elite is a coach body unveiled at the Euro Bus Expo at the
National Exhibition Centre,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
in November 2008 by the British bus and coach manufacturer
Plaxton. It is primarily targeted at the premium touring market. It went into production in late 2008. The vehicles can easily be identified due to their
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022.
After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, t ...
-like curved roof at the front end. Elites on scheduled express routes have a low-level destination board, resulting in a larger front windscreen than most comparable coaches.
Scheduled Express Services

The type began service with
National Express in early 2010 with seven operating between
London and
Liverpool. A further 16 vehicles are being procured to operate in Yorkshire, Oxford and Peterborough. In Yorkshire, Elites have replaced
Caetano Levante
The Caetano Levante is a coach body built by Salvador Caetano on Mercedes-Benz OC 500 RF, Scania K EB, Volvo B8R, Volvo B9R, Volvo B11R, Volvo B12B and Volvo B13R chassis, exclusively for National Express in the United Kingdom. It was specifical ...
s on the long distance 560 service to London, with the latter having been assigned to the 007 and 022 routes between London and
Kent. Onboard features on National Express vehicles include power plug sockets. Elites also have wheelchair lifts installed in their doorways, making them only the second type operated by National Express to be completely wheelchair friendly. National Express Elites have destination displays positioned below the windscreen, in order to avoid obscuring the passengers' forward vision. A batch of 15m B13RT entered service with National Express in 2014. 14m Elites entered service on the Oxford-Cambridge
X5 in 2015
The 100th Elite was delivered to Howard Snaith Coaches in 2011 built on the
Volvo B9R chassis.
Elite ''i''
In 2012, Plaxton introduced a new "interdeck" version of the Elite, named Elite ''i'', in which the passenger cabin extends above the driver's cab to span the full length of the vehicle; in addition there is a small lower saloon. The Elite ''i'' is 15 m long and 3.96 m high, and is built on
Volvo B11RT chassis.
The first batch of eleven went to
Stagecoach West Scotland
Stagecoach West Scotland ( gd, Stagecoach an Iar na h-Alba) is an operating region of Stagecoach UK Bus, comprising Western Buses Ltd based in Ayr, Scotland.
Operations
Stagecoach West Scotland operates in west central and southwest Scotland ...
for
Megabus services in December 2012.
See also
*
List of buses
References
External links
Plaxton EliteNational Express news article
Elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
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