< View previous picture - View next picture > Photographer / Copyright Andrew Lidinson Images should not be reused without permission. View vehicle details Location Link/s Date added to site 22/05/2021 Printer-friendly version of this page

Details: Photos of service vehicles belonging to coach companies in London (and beyond) are occasionally shown on LTSV, though the vehicles are not listed in the database. A nice example is this photo taken in Sydenham on 5th April 2021. Clarkes is one of the longer-established coach operators in London and has always had a sizeable fleet of quite modern coaches. They were bought out by the National Express group in December 2016 though they have so far retained the Clarkes name and livery. One result of the take-over is the appearance of Kingsferry coaches at the Clarkes base. This is another long-established company, running commuter services between Kent and London from the early 1980s, originally using exotic (at the time) Berkhof coaches. Kingsferry was based in Gillingham and took its name from the nearby bridge that provided the link to the Isle of Sheppey. The company was taken over by National Express in November 2007. Both operators use shades of green (and have the modern aversion to capital letters!), with a green Clarkes Mercedes Tourismo peeking in from the left, and a Chinese-built Yutong coach of Kingsferry in the background. What about the service vehicle though? GL18XEB is a Dacia Sandero Stepway car in a sort of metallic brown livery. The Stepway version of the Sandero is marketed as a 'Crossover' or 'semi-SUV'. In reality, it is the same as the normal Sandero (as seen with RATP MJ69ZKV) apart from having raised suspension, roof bars, black plastic panels along the skirt and wheelarches and a slightly revised front grille and bumper.

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