As a driver I would say the Wright build quality is fairly good. The 56 B9's are relatively rattle free and the ex London dual door B7's are fairly decent considering their ages. That said when I was at Arriva I though the Wright Gemini dockers on the X12 were miles ahead of the Sapphire E400. The only thing the Wright dockers needed was a higher top speed however if my  memory serves me right, there was one that wasn't limited to 50mph.

Fast forward to more modern Wright products and we end up at the Streetlite. I (unpopular opinion coming up) enjoy driving them. Acceleration is good and on start stop town work they are in a league of their own. The Drifter examples have a higher top speed than all the others at Deptford (58mph instead of the usual 50mph) which was handy when allocated to the X6/7. Streelites also climb hills well and probably better than anything else I've driven. The only downside is the poor build quality (rattles and squeaks) plus I've found the Daimler engined ones to have a particular bad idle (akin to the ex London E200 at Belmont). I would happily take a streetlite over a Citaro. I think the Mercs which have power are not a nice drive and the handbrake location is just ridiculous, no matter how I sit, I have to stretch forward to apply and release it. Apart from the horrific rattles, the ex London E200 at Belmont also tick all the boxes for me as a driver, Acceleration and top speed, smoothness of brakes and retarder (i challenge you to find me a smoother vehicle in terms of braking), gear changes were smooth and responsive plus good visibility from the cab and decent handling. The only E200MMC I've sampled are a couple of Stagecoach examples and they seem well put together compared with a Streetlite.

The only new Optares I've driven are the Sunderland Connect examples and they came preloaded with rattles and emissions lights. My theory is the bigger the Optare the worse it is to drive and having driven Belmonts Tempos my theory so far seems to be right. I do wonder what the double deck Optare is like to drive.

In the modern world however it appears buying a bus is based around emissions and fuel economy and now i'd also add the actual fuel used to power the vehicle itself. I'm a big fan (both as a passenger and enthusiast) of the Stagecoach gas powered Scanias in Sunderland but it remains to be seen if gas is the way forward.





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