21158 was part of a batch of 20 or so Voith Volvo B10BLEs, with Alexander ALX 300 bodies, bought at a similar time as the first batch of MAN 18.220 ALX 300s to compare. Stagecoach ultimately chose the MAN 18.220, and latterly the 18.240 as their go to low floor single deck across the country, making these rather unique within the Stagecoach fleet.

New in the May of 1998, she was originally branded in Loliner Stripes, a brand designed specifically for low floor, easy access buses to be easily identifiable to the public. However, in early 2006 was repainted into Stagecoach’s generic beachball livery. After Stagecoach (around September 2013) 21158 was sold to Velvet Travel, where it received a full interior retrim with their moquette. Her time at Velvet was rather short lived, passing to Edward Thomas & Son of Epsom, Surrey in 2015, who have had it since. It has been used as a regular school bus, day in day out since, on an approximate 30 mile school run and did the Epsom Races.

She has been well looked after in the last 9 years by the coach firm, and you can really tell this. She drove back from Epsom to Wigan, a total of around 230 miles faultlessly.

We’re going to get her as close to ‘out of the box condition’ as possible, a full interior retrim back into chevron, painted back into strips and obviously any mechanical issues along the way.