AEC Swift - London

London

The largest fleet was operated by London Transport and London Country, with over 1500 in total delivered between 1966 and 1972. Bodywork was supplied by Park Royal Vehicles, Metro Cammell Weymann and Marshall of Cambridge, to basically the same design.

The fleet was made up of a number of variations. The Longer 36' versions were referred to as Merlins, and divided into MB (single or dual door), MBS (dual door), and MBA (dual door with turnstile payment for use on Red Arrow services) classes.

The shorter 33' versions were known as Swifts. There were three variants of this model upon delivery. In the central area SM (single door saloon) and SMS (dual door with automatic fare collection) classes were painted red. London Country operated green SM-class dual door, fully seated saloons that had been ordered by London Transport. Subsequently, London Transport converted a number of SMS vehicles to conventional one-man operated saloons by adding more seats and locking the centre exit out of use. These were renamed the SMD class, but retained their original fleet number.

Neither LT nor LCBS considered either design to be a success and the first examples were withdrawn and sold, many for scrap, in 1972, after just 4 years service. Most had been replaced by 1981 mainly by Leyland Nationals and MCW Metrobuses.

A much larger fleet of ex-LT buses were sold for service in Malta where they lasted - often rebuilt and re-engined until 2011. Some were taken by the Government Education department and remained in their London form apart from a new coat of paint. They were replaced by bendi-buses from London which had also had a very short life in the capital.