The Contender in A Contracting Market
From 1953 to 1969 former Tilling-Stevens factory built the Commer TS3, a compact, if noisy, two-stroke opposed-piston diesel engine adopted in Commer commercials and later marks of their Avenger bus chassis. Harrington (like Beadle) employed units from the Avenger together with a mid-mounted TS3 engine in its Contender range of integral buses and coaches of the mid-1950s, some of these resembled the Wayfarer and others had the standard bus outline of the time, but there was a special design built for BOAC this had a straight waistrail and a multi-paned lantern-type windscreen. (One at least of these were powered by an eight-cylinder Rolls-Royce petrol engine of military pattern, driving torque-converter transmission. An odd choice of propulsion in the fuel-economy obsessed 1950s but they were probably a lot lighter on petrol than a Boeing Stratocruiser or a Lockheed Super Constellation). This style of Contender was sold in 1:43 scale model by Dinky Toys as their 'Airport Coach' BOAC took 28, of which nineteen were used overseas making them the largest customer for the Contender, Maidstone and District were second with 11 buses and one coach.
Although during its short life the Contender was less successful than Beadle's integral coaches, Beadle's comparable Chatham range were by 1957 almost their only line and when the BET group decided to reduce the number of its recommended suppliers only Southdown's liking for their coach body on the Leyland Tiger Cub kept the Dartford body lines going, but then Southdown switched to Weymann and briefly Burlingham (having taken Harrington Wayfarer mark ones in small numbers and then deserted Harrington for most of the 1950s) and that was the end of Beadle in the coachwork game. Rootes decided that the car-dealership chain Beadle also ran was a better business.
During the life of the Wayfarer all of the mushroom coachbuilding businesses disappeared. The clear number one in coach bodies by 1959 was Duple at Hendon, who by 1954 also had a bus factory in the east midlands at Kegworth and in 1958 purchased the bus builder Willowbrook in nearby Loughborough. Duple was strong in the lightweight end of the market, being first choice for bodies on the market-leading Bedford but was facing competition in the premium underfloor engined class from Plaxton and Burlingham of Blackpool. Like Harringtons, these were primarily builders of coach bodies who also did buses, Burlingham built double as well as single deck vehicles and had a respected if small list of customers for these. Weymann, Roe and Alexander were on the other hand bus builders who also did coaches.
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