Although most of its career was spent in Dorset this vehicle, as will be seen from the DL registration, was new to Southern Vectis in the Isle of Wight. From a batch of 9, it was a standard Bristol VRT with E.C.W. body designed to oust crew operated double deckers and extend one man operation.
It arrived from Lowestoft in April 1978 and was allocated to Newport, with 670-2/4-6 while 668 went to Shanklin and 669 to Ryde. Earlier, Hants & Dorset had received a batch of 6 convertible VRs (UFX 855-60S) which were part of a special build of 50 by E.C.W. to allow OMO on various seasonal services worked by crewed open-toppers. Having obtained their allocation, Hants & Dorset found they no longer required open toppers after a service reorganisation saw Bournemouth Corporation taking on a route to Sandbanks. Southern Vectis still had 5 LAs and an FLF on their open top routes so saw the chance to effect an economy by swopping their 6 newest VRs for 6 convertibles, which had probably only run in open top form for Derby Day 1978. One by one, 671-6 were exchanged (in numerical order) for convertibles with 673’s nominal replacement being H&D 3376 (UFX 857S) which became SVOC 707 (and later 505). The 6 closed top VRs entered service in the Bournemouth – Poole area as H&D 3414-9 still in leaf green livery although that company had adopted poppy red when it had merged with Wilts & Dorset. The former 673 was in due course repainted red but spent the next 19 years in the same area, latterly “cascaded” to the low mileage fleet for schools and local work and renumbered as 4416. As a prelude to privatisation and the break up of the NBC, Hants & Dorset had been split up in April 1983 into Hampshire Bus, Wilts & Dorset and Shamrock & Rambler, so all the ex SVOC VRs, allocated to Poole, became the property of Wilts & Dorset. Withdrawal came in 1998 and UDL 673S could well have been despatched to the Barnsley scrapyards at this time. However the privatised Wilts & Dorset, who had adopted a new livery of red, white and black, had embarked upon a programme of heavy refurbishment for many of its VRs so 4416 was reinstated as a float vehicle to cover for those despatched to Hants & Dorset Trim in Southampton for attention. It was then itself sent for the £14,000 rebuild which included work on front and rear domes, replacement of rattling slider windows with plain glass, fitment of yellow DipTAC handrails and complete retrim in grey moquette for both seats and ceiling panels. It returned to the associated Damory fleet at Blandford, receiving turquoise and white livery and a new fleet number (5066). It was set to operate another 10 years in this guise combining schools work with several deeply rural services around the Dorset lanes. During that time it made a successful journey to the Johnson’s VR Running Day (where Tony Johnson would then have happily purchased it for his VR fleet), a rally in Doncaster and various more localised rallies, including an I.W. Bus Museum Running Day. Ironically it was the availability of 1989-91 Olympians from SVOC and Bluestar that hastened the demise of the last VRs from both the W&D and Damory fleets. Both UDL 671S & UDL 673S were despatched to Swanage for storage in December 2008 but, following Go SouthCoast’s generous offer, the latter was brought back to Poole from whence it was collected on March 19th 2009.
This vehicle is being refurbished although only the Damory livery is appropriate to the internal modifications undertaken to give the Wilts & Dorset VR fleet another ten years of service. It has been generously donated to the Museum by Go South Coast and was handed over by MD Alex Carter at a ceremony in May 2009.