The Red Kite B9s aren't the first dealer stock vehicles in the fleet.
Volvo (VDL) SB120 / Wright Merits were also dealer stock vehicles and some even entered service in dealer white. The reason for getting them, GNE needed new buses quickly, and they were the best option.
No doubt the same applied to the Volvo B9TLs for the Red Kite. GNE already had experience of the vehicle type, therefore requires less staff training on the vehicles. There isn't much point in ordering 4 of a new type of vehicle, find that they are complete lemons and go for a completely different type of vehicle for future orders. Go North East tried the Volvo B5TL on the 47 route, and found that it did struggle a little bit, so went for a wise move and went for the stock of 4 B9TLs. They days of small batches of unique vehicles are long gone. Prime examples of small batches brought new include the Dennis Lance SLFs and the Scania L94UAs. Though saying that some reasons that there wasn't more Lance SLFs was that delivery was delayed (4770-4773 were meant to carry registrations L470YVK etc). Also Wright and Dennis had a huge falling out over the fact that Dennis pushed Heathrow Airport to get Berkhof bodies on the chassis, resulting in no more Wright Pathfinders being constructed on the Dennis Lance SLF chassis. Just to add, the Dennis Lance SLF is the only vehicle type that Go North East (well Coastline) pioneered since L469YVK has the lowest numbered Dennis Lance SLF chassis that was actually registred, with the first one being a test rig.
As for the Scania L94UAs, well they were constructed for a bespoke route with low bridges, and were a bit more so of a vanity thing. We all saw how well a large fleet of Bendy Buses went don't we.
As for the Scania L94UBs, the chassis had been around a few years (1997) prior to the introduction of the Wright Solar body, so GNE weren't one of the first with the L94UB chassis. Also the body was developed at least a year before GNE got it too. Because GNE was a big Scania user, they decided to push ahead and go and buy the Scania N230UB Omnicity off the drawing board (think they were the second big operator to get them), and they ended up regretting it with the vehicles being plagued with issues which resulted in various Scania demo vehicles on loan to cover for warrenty work.
Go North East learned from this, and started evaluating more demo buses before ordering.
Also Go North East weren't one of the first few opeartors to get the Euro 5 Citaro, there were a few operators (Oxford, Plymouth, McGills and British Airways who ordered them beforehand, though I still have no idea why 5276 arrived well ahead of the rest of the batch.
