Leyland Tiger - Engine Options

Engine Options

Initially only one engine was offered, the turbocharged Leyland TL11, which could be rated up to 245 hp. The Leopard had enjoyed huge success as a bus in Scotland, usually with the Alexander Y-type body, but had lost some Scottish Bus Group orders to Seddon's Pennine 7, owing to Leyland's unwillingness to offer a Gardner engine in the Leopard. When Leyland launched the Tiger, it continued this same unwillingness, just as Dennis was developing the Gardner-engined Dennis Dorchester, which similarly had the potential to win Scottish Bus Group orders away from the Tiger. Faced with this possibility, Leyland offered Gardner 6HLX-series engines in the Tiger from 1984. To facilitate this, the Tiger chassis had to be modified, as the Gardner engine was significantly larger than the TL11. Although the threat from the Dorchester was successfully warded off, there proved to be a limited market for the Gardner-engined Tiger outside of Scottish Bus Group.

A North American engine, the Cummins L10, was also made an option by 1987. (Cummins' previous attempt to put its engines in a British bus had not been a success; they were used in the notoriously unreliable Daimler Roadliner.) Engine design and development was very expensive, and Leyland was no longer a world leader in this field, so outsourcing was the only option if Leyland wanted modern engines in its coaches. The Cummins engine was being specified more often from around 1988, and with this engine, the gearbox would usually be a ZF as opposed to the Leyland Hydracyclic.

Volvo took over Leyland in 1988, and from 1989 the Tiger was offered with the Volvo THD100-series engine (as fitted in the best-selling B10M). The large majority of Volvo-engined Tigers went to Northern Ireland. At around this time, the TL11 and Gardner options were dropped, leaving only the Cummins and Volvo options available.