A shock purchase by Red Rover, after fleets of Reliances and Leopards was a batch of three Bedford YMTs with Caetano Estoril bus grant specification coachwork. At the time, they were the first such UK spec vehicles and had extra wide single leaf doors to meet bus grant legislation. Unfortunately the door mechanism was linked with the clutch and drivers eager to pull away on stage services often
found passengers getting swiped by the hefty air operated doors. Indeed the mountain of three quite narrow steps were something of an obstacle in themselves. On the runs to Bicester and Buckingham they doubtless gave passengers a comfortable journey, though with the heavy Caetano bodies, their performance was sluggish. Traded in for these three coaches were a number of long serving Red Rover buses: Swifts 101 & 102, dual purpose Derwents 105 & 106, Bridgemaster 107, ex Safeguard Reliance 108, ex Devon General 'Rodney' ROD765 - 109 and Reliance 110. A consequence od dealing with the Portuguese was that the very small destination blinds appeared with some classic printing errors, the most memorable of which was due to a typo in Aylesbury where "St Peters Avenue" was printed "At Peters Aveneue". The errors were quickly sorted before the coaches ventured into service. Bedford 129 is seen above at Quainton Green with driver Martin Isles, photographed by Dave Buley.
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