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Wow!

YYS4BOB wrote:Not much happening here, must be a bus drivers strike. Some of mine (only YY's, sorry).

That's a great selection of Yesteryear buses! I remember getting the Y23 AEC S-Type for my birthday back in about 1983. I just wish they'd made it a little smaller in 1/76 scale instead of 1/72, so it would fit in better with my other London buses. It's interesting to see that Matchbox could make more realistic bus wheels in the 1950s than in the 1980s, although I remember liking the solid tyres on the S.

You have displayed your buses the opposite way round to how I usually display mine - I generally prefer to have the nearside showing, with the entrance (and bonnet on half-cabs) on view. Having said that, I don't have enough shelves so many of them are jammed in together facing forwards, as if parked in a miniature bus garage.

I've displayed models facing left to right ever since I had models on display as a child over 50 years ago! Old habits die hard I guess. I take your point though.

Tekno Mercedes O302 Österreichische Post

That looks to be a well detailed model or toy, not to sure with this brand, I am not up to date with their background.

Ghosthunter.

Tekno always tried to outdo all other diecasters. They were deffo meant to be toys, though.
Many of them, including this bus, have an ingenious steering system that works by pressing down on the outer side of the intended bend, thus giving them an authentic lean while cornering.

Thanks DM, with such working features then it is undoubtedly a toy but certainly a very good one. Thanks for bringing here.

Ghosthunter.

It is actually not prototypical, as I do not think the Austrian post used Mercedes coaches at the time. Back then there were Austrian manufacturers whose products would always be preferred: Steyr, Saurer and Gräf & Stift.

But of course, Tekno never made a model of an Austrian-made coach, so this was the next best thing they could do.

ChFalkensteiner wrote:It is actually not prototypical, as I do not think the Austrian post used Mercedes coaches at the time. Back then there were Austrian manufacturers whose products would always be preferred: Steyr, Saurer and Gräf & Stift.

And ÖAF and Perl-Auhof.
But they did use (and still use) Mercedeses too, as well as many other foreign brands, including some Eastern European ones.
Not sure whether they had O302s, but they definitely had O3500s and O321s, some of which in coach spec with roof edge glazing.

Diecastmolester wrote: But they did use (and still use) Mercedeses too, as well as many other foreign brands, including some Eastern European ones.
Not sure whether they had O302s, but they definitely had O3500s and O321s, some of which in coach spec with roof edge glazing.

That is true, but I was referring to the time while the O302 was current, i.e. the very late 1960s and 1970s.

During that time nearly all "postbuses" employed in Austria were SL12s. The SL12 was made in a joint venture by both Steyr (having merged with Saurer) and Gräf & Stift (having merged with ÖAF) from 1968 to 1978.

Recent pictures of two surviving SL12 examples - those made by Gräf & Stift were branded "Steyr Gräf":





I am not aware of any scale model of the SL12.