Displayed at the 1975 Sydney Bus Show was a fully imported French built Berliet bus. It had been converted to right-hand drive by Denning McKinnon. It later saw service with Surfside and I last saw it in the late 70's (or possibly early 80's) as a non psv vehicle at Marist Brothers Westmead.


On display at the Bus show.



Something tells me this is going to come out very dark, but this is a shot of the Berliet in service with Surfside. Sorry I can't read the rego from the photo I have. Photo taken in the late 70's.

It went as a motorhome last i heard,i remember it at Westmead in the company of the mk1 Leopards in dark green in the very early 1990's, then saw it again in the late 90's but can't remember where.

Rego was 616NSY at Surfside. I think this had a Perkins V8.

These photos also demonstrate that the arrival of Renaults just over a decade later didn't signal a "new" bus design.

Herbert wrote:I think this had a Perkins V8.

Any idea on what gearbox was connected to the perkins?

I don't know, sorry.

Although they are overseas photos, I thought I might post these here as they are related...

Dennis96 photographed this Berliet demonstrator in Turkey during September 1976:





In Poland the PR100 was made under license by Jelcz. This one was also captured by Dennis96 during September 1976 in Warsaw:



Considering this design is well over 30 years old, I think it has aged very well and is still highly appealing.

Here it is withdrawn at the Surfside depot in February 1991.The original motor had been put in a boat belonging to somebody connected to the company and a reliable easy to fix motor (hazy memory - MAN or Volvo) had been fitted for its last years in service.Its seating capacity was too low, which is the other reason for its premature withdrawal and the reason Surfside bought a big bunch of ex Action MANs in 1992 to replace Leyland Nationals with 4 or more less seats- over loading , successful services.

seen in the 80s on the Hume Highway at Yagoona its livery was St Patricks College at Dundas.

And I saw it for a while from the train at Westmead with Marist Brothers there. Some time ago now though.

The bloke who bought it lived in Botany Place Yagoona. He use to work for Pleasure Tours where it was painted all over white with a grey skirt. I actually had a look through it after he finished converting to a camper, he did a good job on it, luckily for me the wife's cousin lived next door. He sold everything and travels around Australia in it now.

Hi all, just to clear a few thing up on Surfside 616.
The Berliet motor was replaced by my farther with a detroit fuel pincher and allison auto only because at the time spares had to come though Vanuatu and it took forever to get anything.
The original motor had a problem with the injector pump witch could not keep the fuel up, it was quicker to repower the bus than wait for spares. I remember us getting the spares for the original motor wich included a rebuild kit 12 mouth after it was repowered, to little to late.
The original motor layed in the workshop for years, we tried to give it to a fellow on the Gold Coast that had a Berliet truck,
in the end the apprentice and myself loaded it on the work truck and took it to the Tugun tip.