Vintage hybrid bus back in service

A hybrid bus, dating from the start of World War I (1914), will be available for free rides when it goes on exhibition in Amberley, West Sussex.

The Tilling-Stevens petrol electric bus — on show at Amberley Museum — uses a motor engine to drive a dynamo, which powers an electric motor to turn the wheels.

The museum will be showing its pre-1939 Southdown Bus collection tomorrow. There will also be a number of ‘visiting buses’.

Peter Edgelar, the museum’s photographer, said: ‘It’s just evocative for a lot of people — they went to school on these things, they went out with their first girlfriends and boyfriends on these things, many of them found their life partners on these things; it’s the smell and the sounds.’